A Knight, A Champion, A Rose
by Whynoteh
Summary: Jaune has making strides in becoming a little more like what his sister's read about in those fairytale books they read as kids, strides in becoming like a hero. And with time it shows. Ruby and Phyrra notice this. The story focuses on these three but it includes everyone. Goes past Breach. Warning: Sometimes gets dark. Disclaimer: I do not own RWBY.
1. Chapter 1: It begins

Ruby remembers it like yesterday. Well, a couple weeks ago more like, anyways, that one blond guy who vomited on Yang's shoe, well, almost on her shoe, but anyways, the boy who turned out to be Jaune Arc. Nice enough guy, kinda awkward though, and seemed like he didn't even pass the entrance exams, but hey, he has to be packing something if he made it into Beacon. Ruby could connect with Jaune, seeing as how they both seemed like fish out of water compared to the much more composed Phyrra, Blake, or Yang. She had only heard of how Jaune and the rest of team JNPR had taken out the Deathstalker seeing as how she was a little preoccupied with taking care of the Nevermore. Maybe Jaune had a little more to him then she thought. Then there was last night, where Ruby had a talk with Jaune about being a team leader. She could sympathize once again, as she had the same talk with Ozpin when Weiss and her had some conflict going between them.

This was a different Jaune though. She could feel her neck tighten as the Ursa Major had his severed by Jaune's blade. The head fell oh so ungracefully after flying a few feet up and landing with a thud, the body following suit. Phyrra may have used her polarity to lift his shield, but Jaune was the one to decapitate the Grimm. Jaune swung, creating a beautiful arc delivering the precise strike through the beast's most vulnerable location.

Following Phyrra and Weiss away from the scene, Ruby couldn't help but to come up with a lame one liner about how she and Jaune were now Grimm beheading buddies, but with Phyrra saying they should stay quiet, Ruby will have to save it for a totally irrelevant time. But she had to comment before they found Goodwitch;

"That was cool. It was like- RAAWR BRrrrrK fwoosh SHWAK!" It was over so quick too!"

"It's nothing you couldn't do really" Weiss said off handedly to avoid boosting Ruby's ego.

"I knew he had it in him."Phyrra whispered to herself, smiling a wide smile.

Phyrra felt a little shame in saying that however. The only reason she associated with Jaune in the first place was because he didn't know who she was, and treated her like he would treat any other (pretty) girl. Phyrra gambled on Jaune not being a total buffoon so she could find companion ship for the first time since she was a little girl, hoping for anything and anyone. It's lonely being at the top where everyone knows you, being put on a pedestal where no one thinks they can reach you. In meeting Jaune, she didn't even consider if he was of good company or was decent, and the thought of her rashness in getting attached embarrasses Phyrra.

But the gamble paid off, thought Phyrra as she tilted her chin up, he's good at heart, and he has the makings for a Huntsmen. Great relief came to the champion's nerves.

-Later that Night-

Feeling returned to the knights nerves.

"Uggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh..." Jaune groaned from deep within. Taking a few full force swipes from the Ursa Major had left him in the red zone of aura and seemingly bruised black and blue all over. He put on a tough face for Cardin when warning him about messing with his teammates, but it was easier to pull that off when he had just killed a beast and had the adrenaline running. He managed to make it back to the dorms with great effort, and did so without seeing his team members. He would be able to go to sleep tonight content with his actions, but confronting his team and apologizing just feels too early. No, he corrected himself, tonight would be the best time to apologize for being a jerk, but Jaune was tired from the fight, and he didn't feel like he had it in him tonight to work up the words.

Instead, maybe he could sleep on the roof. The cold air would be nice on the skin. Yeah, nice cold solitude.

Solitude isn't what Jaune got however. While staring at Ozpin's emerald tower and pondering how he screwed up with Phyrra, Ren, and Nora, and how he would mend those relationships, Phyrra gave the answer.

"No Cardin tonight? I thought... you two were best buds" Phyrra lead him on. She knew the truth, but she gave him the chance to say it himself.

"Phyrra, I'm sorry. I was a jerk a-and you were only trying to be nice... and I had all of this stupid macho stuff in my head..."

"Jaune, it's ok" She smiled as she tilted her head, telling him he could relax. "You know your team misses you." Phyrra turned and headed for the door on the rooftop all the while saying "You should come down, Ren made pancakes! But there's no syrup; you can thank Nora for that..."

"Wait!" Jaune said, reaching out as if to grab her, "I know I don't deserve this after everything I've done but, would you still be willing to help me... help me become a better fighter?" His confidence came to him as he finished his question.

The champion turned away from the knight, a grin plastered across her face. After regaining self control, she straight faced walked to the boy and shoved him down.

"Hey!" He claimed.

"Your stance is all wrong. You need to be wider, and lower to the ground."

They traded smiles before she helped him up.

"Lets try that again" the champion told the knight, and so their nightly lessons began.

-End Chapter 1-


	2. Chapter 2: A day in Vale

**I'm so sorry for spelling Pyrrha Niko's name wrong in the first chapter, I can't believe I didn't check that. It's going to be correct from now on. Also I don't know what happened to mess up the original upload of this chapter, but it's changed hopefully now.**

Because of Glynda Goodwitch, anyone looking at the Beacon Academy's cafeteria would not have found any evidence that one of history's most epic food fights had just transpired, with the exception of the hole in the ceiling left from Yang's re-entry. The decided winner of the fight turned out to be Ruby alone, having plastered all of team JNPR against the wall at the far end of the cafeteria along with the lunches of all the evacuees who saw no victory facing against the first year's top teams.

Having gotten away with just a mild word from their strict professor, Goodwitch, the eight youngsters left the cafeteria still chuckling at the shenanigans and havoc they raised, heading to their dorms to clean out the food from their persons. Sun and Neptune joined them, the latter weary in doing so.

"I warned you. Justice was served and it was served swift. Thou evil doers everywhere, I bid you beware, Hmph!" Ruby whispered loudly, turning up her chin and closing her eyes before breaking into another fit of laughter.

Yang teased, "I'm sorry Nora, I couldn't hear what you said about being queen of the castle or something over the sound of your defeat, what was it you said?"

Nora pounded her chest proudly, "Tis was I that built the castle, all of it's foundations, and raised it's banners, I still own it! You just destroyed it! VALKYRIE'S VALHALLA WILL RISE AGAIN!" Her fist shook at the sky, raging against the deities that determined her loss this day.

Suppressing an uncharacteristic smile, Ren interjected "It's been a childhood dream of hers..."

Weiss flaunted her hair over dramatically before closely inspecting her fingernails, retorting "Oh you plebeian, you don't have what it takes to be royalty let alone rule subjects. But, I could give you some pointers in the right direction if you begged nicely." She gave a small smile and a soft look to convey that she was of course just humoring them.

Stepping in front of the pack and walking backwards, Jaune insisted "Well instead of tapping into her inner majesty, would you mind helping me tap into my inner food fighting finesse. Warning; I will beg Snow Angel."

Jaune couldn't ignore the chance to make talk with Weiss, especially if he got the chance to use a intelligent sounding word to prove some form of smoothness, especially when he sensed competition coming from this blue haired Neptune boy. Anyone watching could see Pyrrha's eye twitch at Jaune calling Weiss "Snow Angel", not that anyone did. Ruby and Blake found his flirting hilarious.

Fluttering her left hand, "While I commend you on that little bit of alliteration, I'm afraid you're going to have to become an actually competent fighter before you're anywhere near our league of food fight club."

"Ooo burrrnnnn!" laughed Yang.

"That was harsh" chuckled Blake.

Jaune wasn't too deterred from that statement, even if he didn't know what alliteration meant, but most doubts cleared his mind when Pyrrha defended him.

"Oh, but you'd be surprised how far he's come." The champion shot the duelist a daring look, of which the duelist was rather confused from where the purpose of it originated from; Ren and Nora however were in the know about the night lessons, and understood where Pyrrha was coming from. It's not that the lessons were particularly secret, but no one asked and no big deal was made about them, so only team JNPR knew.

Ruby sensing a shift in tone brought up her idea for a "best day ever" figuring there was still most of the day left and they were only briefly interrupted with a delicious victory, and the inclusion of team JNPR and the other two would intensify the awesomeness to be gained.

"What do ya think, eh?"

Ren replied "Well we do have a little homework left over from professor Peaches class on mapping out the north of Vale..." He trailed off, several glares pointed in his direction told him his sentiment wasn't well received and decided to retract his qualms.

"It's decided then, we meet in town in one hour at..." Pyrrha motioned Ruby to finish, seeing as how it was Ruby's idea.

"We take an airship from Beacon to the closest train station in vale! Bring Lien!"

- One hour Later -

Based off experience, all the youngsters decided to clean up and wear their combat gear in case something went down. After all, it is the clothing they are most comfortable in, so on a play date like this, it works out. The ten of them were waiting for the inner city train to stop at their station, Ruby running JNPR by on her detailed plan for the rest of the day, never seeming to catch her breath.

"So we take a inner city train to tour the city and get off on the dock side and window shop for a bit then we get water balloons and hold a contest in a park closer to the center of town then we go to this spa with the sign of the lady in the towel and then we eat at this place Velvet suggested to me and then we visit Vale's prized museum and then we attempt to get our driver licenses and see how well we do before we take a high altitude ferry back to beacon. Simple."

They stared at her with curiosity to her apparent attention to detail, with the exception of Nora who claimed "It's like a date!"

"With ten people" Ren felt was necessary to tell her.

"Right, yeah, sorry" Nora blushed a little.

Jaune felt that his wallet was a little thin for this occasion, but his worries were stowed away as the train pulled into the station. The fare was cheap and there was no turning back really. The ten of them clamored aboard the train along with a crowd of people, but found no difficulty finding seating so they could all stick together and look out the windows of the train, as the train itself was decently sized.

As they toured Vale by train, weaving through streets and hills and buildings, Jaune couldn't help but to ask "Why are these trains so big? Don't these just transport people?"

To Weiss' surprise, Blake answered first, with interest, "These cargo trains were originally made to ship raw dust, building materials, and supplies to and from Vale to neighboring villages and mines. They mostly stay inside the city for bussing now unless a shipment from Vacuo needs to run, seeing as how ships and airships from Atlas are the top suppliers for kingdoms right now."

Weiss looked out the window and whispered "There was one that ran recently, but," a deep sigh came from her small frame, "Never mind."

Blake looked at her feet as if to look past them and through the floor into some far away abyss only she could see.

The train ride continued for a while, Nora chatting Ren's ear off and Yang attentive to every word, Blake observing the scenery while Sun attempted to strike up a conversation with Neptune's help, and Weiss and Pyrrha discussing strong Vytal Tournament fighters for the upcoming event with Ruby and Jaune listening in on the speculation. When it was time to get off by the docks, they were assaulted with a strong wave of fish smell, and the reactions varied; Neptune and Blake seemed to not be bothered at all by it.

Presented with a wide variety of stores and services, the group broke off into packs to explore, agreeing to meet up in another hour at the park. Who went with who boiled down to who followed who and who wanted to see what.

Neptune was sticking with Sun who was keeping Blake company, who wanted to check out books and teas. She was a little disappointed to find that Tukson's Bookshop was closed early that day. She did get her hands on some black tea though.

Ren followed Nora in fear of what she would do without supervision, and Nora looked through all the kids toy stores and checked out the most pimping dresses fit for royalty.

Pyrrha followed Jaune while Ruby followed Yang and the two blondes found an arcade that had some of the newest in some stupid fun that they couldn't pass up. The blondes aced the dance machines while the redheads hunted big game in some Open Grimm Season.

And Weiss, familiar in her solitude and silence, found herself reading through the news stand before checking out hair products and jewelry, a little downtrodden by the fact she was alone in the midst of this bustling city.

Meeting back together as agreed and Ruby had taken a few minutes to buy some balloons, the group found all the water taps they could find and quickly filled up the balloons. Everyone got a good laugh when most of the balloons Weiss were holding blew up in her arms as the guard on her Myrtenaster is rather sharp and rubbed up against her boon. Ruby didn't have trouble with her accessories however; she used her cape to hold her balloons.

"Ok people, here are the rules!" Everyone readied their weapons of watery coolness, with the exception of Weiss who messed up, and all gave a ear to hear Ruby.

"First rule! Three hits to get out! Second rule! The balloon must pop on you to count! Third rule! Thatsitgo!"

With Ruby's words, chaos broke loose. For all their effort, the game only lasted about a minute, but it was a minute well spent, as it was all good fun seeing how each person scrambled to win and either succeed or fail. Blake tried her damnedest to avoid getting wet, and with the help of her shadow clones, she was untouched, and therefore claimed victor. Yang lost outright by punching hostile balloons out of the air before realizing what she had done and buckled over laughing at the irony. Jaune and Pyrrha figured they could use their shields but had the same result as Yang and they too resigned. The others duked it out to the best of their ability, Ruby coming in second by being so hard to hit, but still getting pegged by Nora once.

Any other day they would have been bothered by the weird looks from passerby's, but today was their day to goof off, and it was all good fun.

Finding the water in their clothes was cold and the moderate climate not assisting that, they understood Ruby's plan to head to the spa and bath directly after the fact so they could let their clothes dry while they clean up again. The small fee for entrance was readily paid.

On top of warming up, all of them were Huntsmen and Huntresses in training, and so the water of the spa seemed to tend to the aches and bruises they routinely receive from harsh sparring and practice or even by the nature of their styles, much like Ruby and Yang where their bodies take a beating be it throwing oneself around at high speeds or by punching hard surfaces with bare knuckle. The girls section of the bathes were lively and full of excitement, trading info on what they had seen so far until Nora and Yang got the notion to spy on the boys. They were met with much resistance for all sorts of reasons, and before long it degraded into a full on brawl in the tubs. On the contrary, the four boys were engaged in a semi serious conversation.

"Hey, you two see Blake more often than I do, does she she seem a little... off today?" Inquired Sun with a tilted head and contorted face, in fear as if Blake might him.

"It's a reasonable observation." Said Ren, looking to Jaune for a deeper explanation.

"She's pretty aloof usually, or, I guess she's actually just silent but present. Right now I don't know, she seems..."

"Distracted" Sun finished for him.

"Yeah, distracted. I don't know why though."

"I have an idea why..." Sun was thinking about what she said that night at the docks. It must be hard to run from a dangerous family only for it to come back and haunt you thought Sun. There is that, and there is the fact that it seems like the bad guys are planning something, and if dust is involved, well, what would that mean?

"You do? Care to share?" Jaune was curious. Sun obliged, if only for a nibble of someone else's wisdom.

"What would a grand thief backed by a small army of cultist need a immense amount of dust for? Hypothetically, of course..."

Jaune took the hint. "Well, sell it to a third party for money is one option. Continue their crime backed by a surplus of weaponry is another option. Or..." Jaune lowered his chin while retaining eye contact with Sun, his pitch also dropping, "...wage a bloody revolution, a war. I wonder why though Blake specifically would be bothered by an incident or two possibly dealing with a certain thief and a certain infamous cult."

"That's because she's a faun-" Sun stopped himself, "-ny person that you should ask her team yourself if you wanna really understand her first hand."

At that moment, one of the employees walked in a asked them to leave claiming that their friends had been kicked out for endangering the other patrons.

"What happened!?" Sun laughed out as they approached the girls.

"What happens in the spa..." started Ruby, eyes squinted.

"Stays in the spa." finished Yang, looking at her scroll to find where they were relative to this place their upperclassmen suggested.

"Ah this way, to food we go!"

"What did Velvet say this place was like?" Pyrrha asked Ruby.

Ruby giggled before letting out the secret, "The place is a buffet, thing is, you have to make the food yourself!"

"What! That's ridiculous! Isn't the whole point of an establishment that serves food to serve food to their paying customers.?" Weiss found the concept rather insulting.

"I say it sounds awesome" challenged Yang.

And a sight it was. This restaurant, Bargain Buffet, was busy with denizens cooking dinner up for family and friends, red brick walls lined with dark oak tables, the center of the building a wall-less kitchen complex of stainless steal and supervisors meant to charge for used supplies and assist in cooking. Jaune set to make stew, Yang to make cookies, Nora pestered Ren into making pancakes, and Sun egged Neptune to make sushi, the others found seating and awaited their feast. While the knight chopped carrots, Yang came over to Jaune while mixing her dough and found the need to ask him about his cooking.

"Alright, for whatever reason, I can believe your a good dancer, but cooking, I dunno, are you sure your not going to set a fire or something?"

"Ha ha, I could ask you the same Yang." The bruiser chuckled.

"Well I can tell you I know how to bake cookies, maybe not as good as my Mom's, but Ruby likes them. I haven't started a fire in... a year I'd say." She had to pause briefly to honestly remember the most recent failure of hers out of the numerous incedents.

"Same here, except that my sisters found it good fun to force me into a maids outfit before serving them dinner. I may have gotten a little too comfortable doing that..." He gave a strong finish to his cutting before scrapping the carrots into the pot and scraping the residue off the knife into the pot in one swift movement. Yang gave a small whistle at the spectacle, then went back to baking her cookies.

When all was said and done, like the colors they bore the food set upon the table was in no way uniform. Stew, cookies, sushi, and pancakes made for an interesting meal, to which was noted that each cook was a master of their recipe. Weiss still withheld judgment, claiming that she chooses the restaurant next time.

"Holy shit! This place is huge!" noted Sun, examining the size of the museum. "What do they keep in there?"

"Close records and exhibits of the past wars, heros, and relics of our progress." Explained Pyrrha. She knew about the museum quite well, and found a odd solace within it's walls. She ventured a guess that, because of her celebrity status, and how she's placed above others, reading the plaques of these hero's of past grounds her in the mortal realm with everyone else, their immortalized brilliant flames though burnt out still outshine her spark amongst a sea of ash and embers. In these hallways, she was just a girl.

The youngsters having entered flocked to different wings of the museum. Our Knight found himself with Ruby polishing up on the statuettes of Samson the Reclaimer, Evelyn the Fire Maiden, and David the Way farer, all Grimm hunters renowned for their endeavors cutting away swathes of darkness and establishing strongholds for humans.

"I don't think Samson used a big enough boomerang..." teased Jaune, noticing the artistic depiction of the man wielding his weapon of which was as tall as him.

"Well he did make it from a Grimm's mask you know, if he could, he would've made it bigger." Ruby spoke muffled through her continuous eating of left over cookies.

"I also don't think you're allowed to eat inside the museum." He eyed her baggy.

"You're just jealous." Sneered Ruby.

"Anyways, looking at his piece makes a boy like me feel inadequate." The knight motioned to his sword.

"Size usually doesn't matter, from my experience it's all about the technique you know." Ruby said this with a straight face, but Jaune let out a giggle and blushed. Ruby didn't catch on.

"Actually, while we're on the subject, you know..." the knight found the words awkward and difficult, his feet shuffling and his thumbs twiddling, "...thank you."

She scoffed, "For what?"

"That night a while ago, you told me what I needed to hear about being a leader. It really helped, but I never got the chance to thank you."

"Well... your welcome." They traded smiles before she continued, "anytime."

"You know if you need help, JNPR will be there for you guys too." Jaune offered.

She nodded to acknowledge his offer, then stuffed her last cookie in her small mouth. Jaune having noticed a manager coming their way pocketed her baggy and pulled her hood over her face.

"Did I just see food in here?" question the manager in a hostile manner.

"Whaaaat? No... why would you say that?" defended Jaune.

The man muttered something under his breath before going back to his merry way. Ruby giggled as she slid her hood down and finally finished her cookie.

"Oh, you got something on your face, here, let me get it."

Without thinking about it, the boy had stepped in closer and gently tucked her hair behind her ear before slowly brushing the crumbs off her lips. Ruby got lost in the moment, first thinking nothing of it and then realizing this was the most she had interacted with a boy before and stuttered some. Jaune noticed how he got carried away, and pulled away blushing. They both shuffled and cleared their throats while pretending to closely observe the artwork depicting Evelyn the Flame Maiden.

"So whats with Blake, eh?" Jaune broke the silence.

"Oh, we found out that she's a faun-ny person." Ruby fell conflicted to what she should tell him.

"She's a faunas, isn't she?"

She gasped, "How did you know?!"

"I've been dropped a few hints." It seemed so obvious to him now that Ruby confirmed it. It raised flags in his mind about what he's been hearing in the news about the culty White Fang and Blake's possible connections.

"Here, lets go find the others." Jaune started off, but Ruby stood just a moment to look again at the heros. David caught her eye. The plaque read about how David the Way Farer lead his band on an attack against a mountain of Grimm, how they suffered few casualties due to David's careful planning, how David inspired people to fight beside him because originally the Knight himself was just a common person starving in the darkness once, but he pulled himself by the boot straps and fought for humanity. The Rose looked to the boy, and thought, "I can see it, it's when he isn't trying to prove anything." She skipped back to the rest of her group.

-Back at Beacon-

"YOU SHOULD HAVE SEEN HER FACE! SHE FLIPPED WHEN I PULLED A WHEELIE!"

Yang by far was the best driver out of the ten of them, and had showed off to her driving tester only to be failed for violating every safety and speed law in the books. Blake crashed, and really didn't want to talk about it. To no real surprise, most of them did pretty well for kids that had no practice driving, but had all failed for one reason or another save Ren, who actually passed. Heading back to their dorms, Sun and Neptune bid them a fare night and left RWBY and JNPR to it. All was content with the youngsters with the exception of Blake, but in Ruby's mind, they had kicked the new semester off with the best day ever.

-End of Chapter 2-


	3. Chapter 3: A dance in the moonlight

He stood in a forest, the tree's red cherry blossoms permeating into the ground and sky, the shattered moon hanging in the distance by a thread. Day turned to night as lightning brought dark clouds and shattered skies. The heavy rain accompanied the deafening crackles of light. In the distance, the boy could make out his companions combating a nebulous entity, one moment a Grimm, at another, a sinister Atlesian Paladin, and at moments, a darting shadow.

The fight would be understated if it were described as intense. The menace was nowhere yet everywhere at once, intangible yet a force all the same shrouding it's prey in a daze of assaults. The boy had to help. Charging forward, the knight found it increasingly difficult to run. The rain soaked into his clothes and armor, weighing him down like lead. The winds followed with icy blasts of cold, making the boy feel as if he had jumped into ice water stark naked, but most of all, vulnerable.

He lost sight of his friends.

He looked around.

Nothing to be found but the red eyes, the very eyes that opened the gates to hell themselves, the eyes that past judgement of an angry god.

The knight lifted his sword to attack but found it too heavy to lift, and it being but a burden, he was left as nothing more than a boy.

The red eyes leaped, but instead of lunging from danger, the boy refused to let go of the sword. In the moment of truth however, the combined effect of terror and lack of strength left the burden of the sword too great for the boy to overcome.

Nothing but the boy existed anymore, and looking down on the scene, the boy saw his lifeless form in the red blossoms.

The blossoms and the body melded together to be red like roses.

Jaune woke up.

The boy kicked his sheets off, too hot for the blankets. It was still dark out, and no one else was awake. Wiping his brow of cold sweat, he reflected on his nightmare, glad to feel the warmth of his bed. As far as he could tell, everyone he knew was an experienced fighter, or was at least confident in their ability to fight. For most of his life, this wasn't much of a problem, or wouldn't be to be more exact. But he realized things were different now. He signed himself up for a line of work where one charges headlong into death, and the ability to defeat 99% percent of the population as it stands is a entry fee, and the weakest of the strongest are still pushed beyond that into a higher echelon of society where the fate of the world at any given point in time could be shoved into their arms. He walked in without that entry fee paid and felt crushed by the pressure of everyone being leagues above him. That fight against the Ursa Major was a stroke of luck he thought. No one would have saved him had he failed to execute that final strike perfectly, that would have been it, he would've been dead. He was just a regular boy until he met Pyrrha who unlocked his aura, and had never fought before let alone victoriously.

No.

He is still just a boy. He may be able to take a hit or two, but another hit will leave him dead, and his skills are measly at best when put next to someone like Ruby or Yang.

Scanning the room, he gazed at Pyrrha lying asleep in her bed. The frantic noise in his head and ears disappeared. He may not have the same crush on Pyrrha as he does on Weiss, but Jaune can't deny that he feels safest around the Champion, her confidence in him makes him think he can stand a chance versus the armies of darkness one day as a Huntsmen.

Doubts crossed his mind again. One day? Sooner than that probably. RWBY is onto something he found out through their leader, and heard the details about the fight with Roman and the military tech. I need to get some rest though, I won't be able to fight with my eyes acting against me, thought Jaune. Taking another look at Pyrrha, the embrace of sleep found him quickly.

-Later that Day-

Jaune didn't need anything for his birthday. Even the failure of his attempts at wooing Weiss thus far didn't bother him. Having watched Pyrrha destroy team CRDL single handedly made everything better. After congratulating the Champion on her victory, in a twist found the inspiration to snatch a guitar from one of Beacon's only music rooms and sought to serenade Weiss. He figured as long as he returned it before whoever the professor was figured out they were a instrument short that it would be fine. He had picked up some skills in playing from one of his sisters who was already strumming with a unique temper by the time he was born. With both his instrument and confidence in hand, he made his move...

...I'm so sorry for taking your favorite guitar professor Brown, I just needed it for like a minute and was going to return it as I found it..." Jaune apologized.

"Thats wonderful, really..." Snarked the middle aged man, "...But if you do this again, I will have your ass boy."

"Yes sir." His response could be best described as a child whose just been scolded, and tucks their chin in as if to hide from the world. Curiosity however pulled him from his guilt, and as he walked out the door he couldn't help but to ask, "Why does Beacon have a music teacher?"

"Well say we found ourselves in a situation where only the strongest of us survived, yes? Now wouldn't we be sorry if the ability to perform was lost to the apocalypse?" The man's words were laced with condescension.

"I guess that makes sense. Uh, bye." He felt the need to get away from Professor Brown quickly. The comment about the apocalypse struck a little close to home. He decided to head to the arena to maybe practice, or not really, it's just that they were close and were not this room.

"What am I talking about, Roman is a thief, not a evil mastermind. And a revolution might be possible, but it's not like the true end of the world would be brought about by some conflict between sides. War is nothing new." The simple logic calmed his nerves. At this point though, he didn't know where he was going, or rather knew where he was, but didn't have a destination in mind. He still had a couple hours before he had night lessons with Pyrrha. He still hadn't figured what to do with his time by the time he reached the arena they had left earlier that day. To his surprise, he found Ruby kneeling, sulking in the center of the arena, rays of moonlight being the only form of luminance in the room highlighted her silhouette. She stared at the moon, a stern look upon her face. The moon had always fascinated her, but never really understood why. She felt that maybe she had associated the moon with a distant and obscure but precious memory, and that the more she gazed at this enigma, the more sorrow she felt by being just out of reach of her long awaited epiphany, but also felt comfort. Comfort for the fact that whether or not she truly loses her grips on her childhood memories, the moon would eternally keep them nice and safe for Ruby, for, the moon was not leaving anytime soon.

"Hey, what are ya doing stranger?" Jaune spoke softly.

"Oh! Hey stranger." She directed her gaze to the ground. The knight approached slowly.

"What's wrong?"

"It's Blake... I'm worried about her." This time, her gaze scanned the darkness around them.

Jaune had noticed Blake's distracted behavior recently, but waited for Ruby to expand.

"She's totally obsessed with stopping the bad guys, but we don't know where they are so we can't even hope to stop them and that's

driving Blake mad. She can't eat or sleep, and is refusing to relax just a little so she can go to the dance. And I'm scared she won't get out of this on her own and that worries me more because she's one to push people away as it is." She too spoke softly.

"Nope!" Jaune made an attempt to mimic Ruby's line from that night prior to his slaying the Ursa Major.

Ruby looked up and left to make eye contact for the first time this night. On the side of her face that glowed white in the light, Jaune couldn't help but to make out her silver irises that caught the moonlight and lit up like a... Beacon.

"Heh," Jaune was amused by the thought,

"...No. You guys will get to her eventually. She can't go on like this, that's the thing, she will find that she can't continue this and will slow down with or without help. You guys can help."

She smiled. Jaune could make out a tear well up in her eye before she wiped it away.

"Thank you Jaune."

"You helped me, I can't not return the favor." He offered his hand to her. She took it and stood up.

"You would've done it anyways, with or without my help." She smirked, holding in a laugh.

"Hey, no copy catting!" He chuckled.

"I'll fight for my right to speak!" Ruby playfully punched him in the shoulder. Or rather, Jaune couldn't tell if she meant to hit hard but didn't actually have the natural muscle to back it up.

"Is that a challenge?" He folded his arms in defiance of her. She took a moment, looked around, then said:

"You know what, yeah, I'll do a cool down fight against you..." Before Jaune knew it, Crescent Rose was whipped out and ready to go. The call to fight was strong, seeing as how recently he's only practiced with Pyrrha. He reciprocated with his sword and shield.

"Standard match rules, we fight to the red zone." Ruby accepted of course. For her, fighting was like an invitation to play. For Jaune, he needs all the practice he can get.

They stood on opposite sides of the decorative compass rose marking the floor, starting on the chime produced from Ruby dropping a 95 caliber round on the marble floor. Before Jaune could make 3 feet, Ruby had dashed the whole distance and was in the middle of a roundhouse swipe on his right side where he held his sword. He went flying, but to her surprise, he managed to maneuver on his third bounce into a roll that uncoiled him into a standing position. She went for another swipe but on his left side this time. He saw it coming this time, even if just barely, and raised his shield arm. Her scythe bounced off and she came to a stop to avoid tackling him. Her attacks relied on slicing and dicing, using momentum, but if she was moving forward but her target remained stationary even after an attack, they might be knocked down but so will she. Jaune saw the opening and kicked Ruby in the gut, sending her a few feet before landing on her rear. She went for another mad dash but stopped when he predicted an attack from his right side again, a feint on her part, what she aimed for though was his head. He ducked. She brought the scythe around her back directing the next strike on a downward diagonal across his chest. He followed the momentum of her attack and properly predicted a downward strike, lifting his shield above his head. The scythe blade drew sparks illuminating the room as it ran along the shield before planting itself into the ground in front of Jaune. What Jaune couldn't follow next what with most of the room being pretty dark was Ruby's finger squeezing the trigger on her Scythe. Jaune took a direct hit in the gut and was sent flying back. Again he stood up, but a final dash by Ruby caught her blade behind his shield, and firing once again, the Knight was sent flying with his arm being yanked from his socket.

-Several minutes later-

"Oooooooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Hhmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm." He bit his lip to keep from crying out loud. The nurse was quite brash in fixing Jaune's dislocated shoulder.

"I'm so sorry Jaune, I'm so sorry!" Ruby was quite flustered.

With a small but high voice, Jaune replied, "Ahhhhh it's ok, ok, ok, uhhh..." He breathed in and out through his teeth, his face a sickly white with a sweat worked up.

"You should be fine young man, just make sure to not repeat what ever you did for a while. You can go whenever." The woman was nice enough thought Jaune, but this isn't how he would like to meet anyone for the first time. Pain is strong when it comes to first impressions. Leaving the nurse's office, Ruby helped Jaune along in her guilt.

"I'm serious Ruby, it's okay, I chose to fight knowing what I might get into. You don't need to help me to make up for it."

"I know... it's just that I wasn't careful, I wasn't thinking..." she twiddled her thumbs in shame.

"Ha ha ha! You shot me at point blank range with giant sniper rounds quite deliberately, Ruby." The idea of being careful for your opponent in a match strikes humor in the eyes of Jaune, combat being the act of attempting to end your opponent in any way possible. He wasn't mad, not at all, albeit a little embarrassed that he had upchucked his lunch on the floor in the arena.

"You should know though, you did pretty good. You have definitely improved from when you fought that urs- er uh what's his name again? Cardin! That's right! I think you could win against him at this point." Ruby remembered that she wasn't supposed to know that he killed that Ursa, or she thought she did. Running through her mind she couldn't remember what she was supposed to know and what everyone else already knew. But, in the end, she left it as it was.

"You're just saying that," Jaune however believed it at least a little, "...you're not doing any real favors you know."

"Well, let me walk you back to your dorm at least." The girl had put on a faux air of professionalism to convey her lightening up.

"You're just stalking me, thats what's going on here..." he teased.

"Yep! Stalking you all the way back to **my dorm** where I **live**." A small giggle escaped her.

"I dunno, It's highly suspect if you ask me..."

-Later that Night-

"Jaune, aren't you going to use your shield?" Inquired Phyrra.

"Naw, it's fine. Really. I'll just use my sword."

-End of Chapter 3-


	4. Chapter 4: A dance's Reconciliation

"Before I forget, where did you get the dress Jaune?" Pyrrha's curiosity had been eating at her throughout the dance, and now that things had calmed down and everyone was done for the night, one of the many inevitable questions had to be asked.

"Well... See... Ruby and Blake as you could see got their own dresses, so Ruby asked me to take the school dresses they were issued and return them for them. So I was on my way to return them when I stopped by my rocket locker and thought that 'Hey, if I put these in there, then if Pyrrha doesn't get a date, I can use these.' and I did." Jaune held open the door leading outside for Pyrrha as he answered. She could see the hairs on Jaune's arms stand on end, soon followed by the associated goosebumps, and she figured he wasn't used to the embrace of the cold without his hoody.

"You're wearing Blake's dress?" She found it impossible to keep a straight face on this topic for obvious reasons.

"Yeah. She's only a little shorter, so I figured I could squeeze into this, and lo and behold. It's a little tight in the waist, but otherwise it's pretty roomy. Ha, it's chilly though, as least the maid's outfit I was forced to wear as a kid had stockings and something over the shoulders." Pyrrha reeled back.

"What?" She asked incredulously.

"What? Oh... I didn't say anything- What are you talking about? Did you say something?" Jaune didn't want Pyrrha to know about that part of his childhood just yet.

"Oh? And is that another thing that happens when you have seven sisters?" teased Pyrrha. He nodded. "Anyways, I heard Blake wasn't going to come to the dance. I'm glad she did; it looked like she had a good time."

"Yeah, Ruby told me that Blake was... in a bit of a rut. Found out that Yang talked to her and things are better now I guess. By the way, is it just me or did Ruby just disappear halfway through the dance?"

Pyrrha agreed that Ruby seemed to have left. She wondered more however in where they going, seeing in how she was following Jaune and he seemed to be wandering. However, as Pyrrha figured, if Jaune got lost or was taking a detour, that would mean more time for her to chat with him, and decided to humor him. She quickly found out that it turned out as well as it could of, as she noticed that where all the other students were making a bee line for the dorms, Jaune took them through the gardens allowing the two of them privacy. Now was her chance.

Finding the words were harder than she thought, bringing her to a stop, "Jaune..." she said with a hint of fear in her voice. The knight caught on and turned to her, letting out a small shivery breath, visible in the frigid air. "...what I said on the balcony, speaking my mind so shamelessly like that, I only know so well how you care for Weiss and yet I guilted you away from her for my selfish desires... I'm sorry. I realize you are probably mad at me, but I want you to know that you don't have to worry about me ever again..."

The girl couldn't make eye contact with him. Everything she said just then was a lie. She was oh so very glad that he had left behind his pride just to keep a promise with her, did all he did at the dance just to cheer her up. It was also the first time she ever got the chance to vent about the pedestal of which she stands on is the very thing she loathes. The last thing she wants is for Jaune to stop possibly worrying about her, and the one thing she was sorry for is lying to him in the first place. She could feel a tear forming in her eye, her breathing became difficult. 'What am I saying?' she thought, 'Why am I doing this to myself?'.

"Look at me..." Jaune put his hand on her shoulder. Her head lifted from staring at the ground and her eyes were met with his. Jaune opened his mouth to speak, but didn't find words. She could see that he didn't expect this, and needed the moment to figure out what he wanted to say. His other hand reached for her shoulder, pressing down to direct her to sit. With all of her conflicting feelings surfacing at this moment, she never realized how pretty the area they're in is until now. Jaune had set her down to sit on the stones of a ornate fountain that beyond the stepping stones encircling it was a bed of various flowers, most notably red roses and gold flowers,

with trees turning orange with the coming of autumn lining the walk way, complete with the Emerald Tower framed as a silhouetted in front of the shattered moon.

Kneeling in front of her, grasping her hands tightly for her warmth if not for her attention, Jaune spoke ever so softly.

"You are my very dear friend Pyrrha, and you have done so much for me that I can't just neglect you in return. It was my honor to be with you tonight. If you are stressed or down and out, I'm not just going to watch, I and promise you that I will try my damnedest to be there for you." He chuckled for a moment, "And don't you worry about the whole Weiss thing. I've realized that... she is great, and I won't take that back, but, I don't know, I've had crushes before and I can feel this is one of them, it isn't serious, just a passing thing."

"So you're not going to chase Weiss anymore?" Pyrrha had to hide the excitement in her voice.

"Yep. That's over. It only took her rejecting me 27 times for me to realize it's time to move on." He laughed, and so did Pyrrha, but her laugh was to satisfy her urge to jump in celebration instead. It was as if iron shackles had unclenched her ankles and weights removed from her shoulders. She honored his humility with reassurance.

"I'm glad you have figured out what you want to do."

He stood up and offered his hand. Pyrrha could see that Jaune was no longer shivering, although it didn't all that much surprise her.

"Woah, deju vu..." Jaune wobbled for a moment.

"What do you mean?" Pyrrha's curiosity piqued. What did he mean by that? Was this so common a situation to him? It can't be.

"Ah, it's nothing... I just feel like I've done this before."

Pyrrha accepted his response readily along with his hand. Moving to his side, she linked arms with the boy.

"Do you mind?" she teased.

"Not at all." The champion found it ironic that she asked if he minded while it was her that was nervous. This is the most contact with a boy she's ever really had besides beating them up. This level of intimacy is something new to Pyrrha, and as small as it is, it gives her the most happiness she has felt in a long time. She however kept her irony and excitement to herself.

They walked their way back to their dorms in silence, comfortable in the understanding they at least believed they had. Finally reaching their room however, they found that Ren and Nora hadn't gotten back yet.

"What do you think they're doing?" Inquired Jaune.

"Do we want to know?" She insinuated maybe they were 'doing' something, but in reality, her first thought of what they would do was of Nora buying more pancake batter, which isn't scandalous in the slightest. She then felt guilty for personifying Nora as nothing more than a pancake eating hammer slinger. Nora obviously has more going on, it's just that Nora and her pancakes is the first thing to come to mind.

Sitting down at her desk contently, Pyrrha finally felt the effects of fatigue hit her, after all, she never stays up late in fear of being tired in the morning, and here she is at one in the morning after training earlier, the dance, and her talk with Jaune. She managed to get a brief comment on how sore she was in the neck before drifting off into a light sleep leaning back into her chair. In her sleep, she could make out her neck and shoulders being pressed into systematically. 'Awww, he's giving me a massage...' she thought. She also made out something moving her before she was out completely.

When Pyrrha woke up, she found herself still in her dress but in her bed tucked in, the morning sun spraying golden light into the room, Nora and Ren in their beds as usual, and Jaune out to get breakfast, his bed made already. She pieced together that Jaune had carried her to bed and tucked her in after she fell asleep, and for the first time she can remember, she blushed. Pyrrha turned over and planted her face into her pillow to conceal her small squeals of happiness.

-Elsewhere-

"Which button do I press? Ah, uhm... I'll just press all of them..." Ruby speaks to herself as she attempts to reach Ozpin's 'office' for a debriefing on the glass infiltrator she spotted the night previous.

-End chapter 4-


	5. Chapter 5: Monocular Visions

"So we all agree? Alright, sheriff assisting outer village mission it is..." Jaune being the one working the terminal selected the mission and signed team JNPR up to take it. Jaune and Pyrrha were into the idea of keeping peace. Ren simply wanted to revisit his hometown. Nora thought that if peace needed to be kept in the first place, then a fight was likely to break out. Therefore, she wanted to be there for it. The one disappointing fact about their first mission however was that there would be no Huntsmen or Huntress aiding them, rather, they would be hired muscle working for this sheriff... without being paid.

"It's done, we're signed up" reported Jaune as he backed out of the sign up page and into the mission categories.

"Now we just wait for tomorrow" said Pyrrha.

"I'm afraid there will be no waiting; rather, I have a very important mission for you four that starts immediately." None of the teenagers noticed that Ozpin was right behind them casually sipping his coffee before he spoke. Team JNPR as a whole jumped a few feet in the air at Ozpin's sudden appearance, this being the first time any of them have personally addressed by him.

"Mission, sir?" Ren was the one to ask it, but it was the main concern they all shared. If Ozpin had a specific job for them, what could it be? How important would it be if they were the ones who had to do it? As it stood, Team RWBY and JNPR were the top first year teams, so whatever Ozpin needed he decided the team needed to be competent, but if they needed to be competent, why didn't he chose an older team?

"Yes, a mission. You four will be tailing team RWBY closely as they perform their tasks. You are to keep an eye on them but remain unseen yourselves. In the case of an event, you will be given further instructions. Until said event may happen, I repeat, you must remain unseen. You will be lead by Huntsmen Qrow, but he will not be with you directly. There is a ship waiting on the east air strip to take you to where team RWBY will be located. Inside is the supplies you need. You leave in ten minutes. Any questions?" Ozpin received confused stares before Jaune spoke up.

"What is this about Huntsmen Qrow?"

"He will communicate with you through all of your scrolls, so pay attention to them."

"What events, sir?"

"Now that is a good question, isn't it?" Ozpin took a sip of his coffee. They waited for an actual answer, but with the silence between them growing long, they realized they wouldn't get an answer. "Well if that's it, I'll be taking my leave. Good luck."

Ozpin began to walk away, but was halted by another question. "Can they know we're following them?"

He didn't turn around to face them and continued looking away, "Well Ms. Nikkos, if you aren't supposed to be seen by them, do you suppose you're allowed to let them know you're there in the first place?" Ozpin didn't sound condescending, but the principle of his question made Pyrrha feel stupid for asking in the first place, the answer seeming so very obvious with the way he presented it.

Ozpin left them for good this time to stew in confusion. Even Nora didn't know how she felt about this sudden burden placed on their shoulders, 'what was happening?' they thought but didn't ask, aware that none of them had a clue.

Walking out of the assembling hall team JNPR spotted their target of interest, team RWBY, talking to Professor Oobleck who they assumed would be the Huntsmen RWBY would shadow.

-Eight minutes later-

Their airship took off with haste before Ren could even get both feet in, and their pilot rocketed forward and took them up high to overtake RWBY's identical airship. Anyone of them would be lying through their teeth if they claimed they weren't both excited and anxious. The act of going on a mission being what they've waited to do and the intrigue of their circumstances worrying them over what they would be encountering made their blood boil. In the small passenger cabin they found four backpacks with a note above them reading "Take these".

Looking through them, they found food, monoculars, basic medical supplies, and cloaks that acted like urban ghillie suits and warm blankets. Simultaneously, they received a message via scroll telling them to put the cloaks on, prepare their 'landing strategies', and to keep quiet.

"I don't like the sound of this!" Jaune had to yell over the sound of the wind and roaring engines, but his group heard him, and they shared his concern.

Before long, the pilot spoke over the intercom "LZ is approaching fast, first roof top on our left." They saw what he was referring to. They were coming to a decrepit city void of human life, long abandoned. It resembled Vale alot in the aspects of it's construction and layout, but was nothing but a empty concrete ruin. It struck a chord of fear in their minds as to what team RWBY would be doing here.

The vertical drop from what they made out wasn't too bad being only 30 feet, but their forward motion was 70 mph plus after slowing down, and their target was pretty small. The idea was to avoid attracting grimm attention by being in the area for as short of a time as possible, so they couldn't ask the pilot to slow down.

They all had to jump at the same time which made for an awkward line up to avoid bumping into each other mid air. Nora put herself behind everyone else, being built like a brick wall she planted her two feet into the concrete roof proudly, stopping all of her motion. Ren was in front of her and rolled a few times before coming to a stand. Pyrrha was ahead of him and went shield first on her feet to shield board to the side. Jaune at the forefront waited a second too long before jumping with his shield in front of him to break his fall.

He missed the roof by a good ten feet and broke through the wall of the adjacent building, bouncing along the ground and coming to a stop in front of three Beowolfs who were previously resting. The four of them shared a moment of blank looks before the first grimm attempted to slam the ground where Jaune laid. Jaune swiped away the claws to his left with his shield and followed with a stab to the attacker's throat.

'I need to kill them before they attract anymore' thought Jaune. He knew that if these grimm make enough sound or do whatever it is these grimm do, more are sure to come, and their mission would be jeopardized.

The dead grimm flailed some before collapsing onto his friend, pinning him for just a precious few moments while Jaune rushed to his feet to avoid the other Beowolf's charge. Jaune hacked off the arm the Beowolf used to attack and killed the grimm with a gaping chest wound on the backswing. Wasting no time, he decapitated the pinned grimm before it could recover.

Looking around he spotted the rest of his team jumping through the hole he made, but first took the moment to check his surroundings. The floor he crashed into seemed to be for offices, cubicles, but the thin walls and desks have rotten and decayed into rubble from the weather making its way through the open roof and mostly windowed walls of which most were broken. Anything of value is gone or destroyed he noted. No terminals, and the only thing left standing are the metal chairs of which some crows found refuge. Jaune knew there was a story behind this, no doubt of that, but what?

"You okay?" Pyrrha whispered, placing her hand on his shoulder.

"Yeah, but now we to find team RWBY" he whispered back.

"We'll have to wait though, they're not here yet" said Ren as he looked out the window.

Jaune looked around again and checked the area surrounding the building. They themselves were at the highest point, but the buildings weren't very tall at all and were somewhat sparse.

"We'll go to the rooftop and remain there. Hopefully we'll get a good view of RWBY and be too out of the way for them to spot us."

"They're here!" exclaimed Nora in whisper.

Crouching behind the short wall of the building, they pulled out their monoculars and watched RWBY and Oobleck disembark.

"Oh my god that dog is adorable!" Nora once again exclaimed in whisper.

"Why would they..." Ren trailed off in disbelief at the fact that they brought a seemingly hapless dog with them.

They could see the grimm pack charge at RWBY, but to no one's surprise, they dispatched them quickly. Taking opportunity of their distraction, the scouts made their way to the roof to expand the scope of their view.

As the day continued, the ground team made their way through the gray city, exterminating swathes of grimm they attracted while the scout team remained behind them mostly, making use of the roofs to avoid the brawl. No one had gotten a message from Qrow yet, so the four teens began to get bored with literally laying down on a roof watching one of their friends kill basic grimm for hours, as the mission felt less like a mission and more like a boring lecture from Professor Port on killing things with intermissions of parkour. They were also disappointed that from what they saw, Professor Oobleck hadn't done any fighting himself, and was just talking to the girls.

Night finally came, and they found that the night time was rather frightening for them with respect to their task. While their target could make a fire and hide, JNPR had to have direct visual contact with them and couldn't have a fire or anything resembling coziness. They took refuge inside the top floor of a building at it's corner, where the cold wind blew in, blackness behind them hiding any possible threat, and it was the one place they found that offered a view of RWBY. They got a good giggle though from huddling together like sardines to keep warmth, their cloaks camouflaging them to look like rubble. They were used to sharing a room, not a tight space like this, but they were all good friends so it didn't bother them too much.

As they watched, Nora soon fell asleep. Jaune quickly realized that only one of them needed to be awake, and decided he would take first watch. He laid there with his monoculars and since Weiss, Blake, Yang and Oobleck were just inside the building resting out of sight, Jaune was essentially watching Ruby. The thought amused him of telling her on a later date that he basically stalked her for a whole day. What didn't amuse him however was how he actually enjoyed this, this watching feeling creepy.

He had to ask himself, 'why do I enjoy this?'

'Well' he thought, 'she's cute, she's nice, kinda funny, confident... she has really pretty eyes.' Jaune found himself looking quite intently at her silver eyes, glowing in the moonlight.

'She's a wonderful girl... and one of the greatest friends I've ever had.'

Jaune's answer was apparent as long as he stayed honest with himself. He had simply fallen for the girl.

What he told Pyrrha on the night of the dance about his feelings for Weiss being a passing thing made sense to him now. He developed a crush on Weiss like he had on many pretty girls before, but this weighted feeling for Ruby was deeper than that, he could feel it. If he dug into why he ever liked Weiss, he'd find it's all shallow, 'she's pretty, she can sing, a great fighter', but there was no true bond between them, nothing in common. He was just into the idea of Weiss, like many other crushes he's had in regular school life. Ruby however... Ruby was close to him.

No. Not just Ruby.

He turned his head to the right and looked upon the sleeping face of Pyrrha. He ran it through his head, and it came out to much of the same. Pyrrha had been there for him from the start, and she too was one of his greatest friends, or, his best friend and top contestant to Ruby. He even owed her his life, for without her, he would've died from the fall in the team choosing test, and his aura would've never been unlocked. She is so selfless that the thought of her putting herself after others made Jaune want to embrace her tightly to remind her that she needs care too.

It was with that thought that Jaune realized both girls had rolled to the left, meaning that Nora was glued to Ren, then Jaune was alone with Pyrrha who was snug up against him. He blushed with no one to see, as it made his heart skip a beat to look at her beautiful, peaceful face, inches from his. Her breath quiet and long, and her warmth being the only thing between Jaune freezing and keeping cozy.

'Even now she's saving me.'

Sometime later, Ruby changed places with Yang. Jaune figured that they could stick to RWBY's plan of shifts to equally distribute the work, so he woke up Ren and left watch to him. Ren didn't protest in the slightest and Jaune let his heavy eyes fall.

-Some time later-

Jaune screamed for her to come back. He would've ran and caught her, but his body was pinned, and he couldn't feel his left side. Ruby was running into the endless black, not realizing the danger, and couldn't hear him somehow.

With every step she took it was harder and harder for him to see her, the black shrouding her dark descent,

'Please! Come back!' he begged, but to no avail.

Before he knew it, she was gone.

"Jaune! Wake up!" Ren was pushing on the sleeping knight.

"ugh, uh, wa... what?" Jaune responded with confusion. He could feel a cold sweat on his brow. His left side was numb from the cold. Pyrrha's vivid green eyes were watching him in concern.

"Ruby left with the dog." Ren reported.

"Go follow her, contact us if anything happens." Jaune figured Ren was the most awake and the quickest, so he would do best in this situation.

As he thought, Ren disappeared into the night, so he took watch and saw Yang still sitting at her post.

"Jaune... are you okay? You were mumbling and shaking in your sleep..." Pyrrha didn't wait to ask her question.

Till now, he always had suspicion that he might be active like that in his sleep during his nightmares, but he could never confirm it. He was always the first awake so no one would hear him. His response only generated more concern within Pyrrha.

"Don't worry about it, this happens all the time..." 'great answer Jauney boy' he thought sarcastically.

In unison, their scrolls buzzed. Ren just sent a message saying Ruby fell into a deep hole into the underground.

"Oh dear!" exclaimed Pyrrha. Jaune's nightmare flashed in his mind briefly, the resemblance uncanny and terrifying.

Their scrolls buzzed again, this time it was from Qrow. The message read 'join with the others to find Ruby'.

-Meanwhile underground-

The small girl, hands bound by wire, was being dragged along the ground through what she gathered was a White Fang operation hide out. The last bit of blurriness in her eyes from being decked faded away just as her 'escorts' stopped in front of what sounded like Roman Torchwick.

"Ohhhh... this is bad." He strolled out of the train cart with curiosity upon his face.

"Why hello Red! So good to see you!" He drew a deep breath from his cigar.

"Ya know... you've been a real thorn in our sides lately. If it wasn't for you we'd be smooth sailing all the way." He lifted her chin with his cane.

"Good!" He smacked her hard in the face, she spat out blood. He lifted her chin again to see the spectacle of her fear. She refused.

She kicked from the ground with all her might and head butted Roman in his gut. He reeled back for a moment as she made her get away. Roman composed himself quickly however and snagged her with his cane hook, reeling her back in like a fish on a line.

"A lot more manageable without your oversized gardening tool I must say but still so troublesome nonetheless." Roman stepped around her head and kneeled onto her chest, effectively pinning her with the aid of her makeshift cuffs.

Ruby wormed around and struggled, but she had no leverage to get him off of her. She refused to scream or make a noise as her last ditch effort to piss Roman off.

He drew another breath of his cigar with his right hand, the end of the cigar red hot. He leaned forward and forced her right eye open, pressing her head hard into the gravel to keep her still. She tried with all her might, but one of the White Fang members stepped onto her head pinning her completely. She still refused to make a noise.

"Let me ask you this Red. If we were to kill you here, would you stop being such a pest to this operation?" He waited for a response, but got none. "Well I think we both know the answer to that. We get rid of you, your friends come along and find your remains, they're too heartbroken to chase us, and we can get something done for once! I'm liking this idea, aren't you?" Ruby could make out a smile forming on the White Fang surrounding her. This is not how she wanted to go out she thought. Helplessness is one of the most painful feelings she could imagine herself in. Is this how it ended for her?

Roman took his cigar, drew one final breath to make the end glow once more, then lowered it closer and closer to her right eye. Ruby stopped resisting, she would give him no pleasure of her struggle or screams. She could feel the smoldering heat of his cigar hover above her eye, his hand still as stone, she clenched her teeth.

"Ah who am I kidding?! I wouldn't do such a thing to you Red! It'd be a waste of a cigar..." she let out a deep sigh of relief.

Roman's thumb plunged deep into her skull.

The world stopped existing. All that existed was her head. She wasn't aware of her surroundings, her legs, her arms, her chest, the only thing she could feel was her head. Her ears rang with painful noise, her good eye saw nothing but black and white pulses, she tasted blood.

It felt like she was drowning, drowning and being smothered. All of this pressure bearing down on her skull, her brain, inside her socket, she felt claustrophobic, like she was being crushed.

At first it stung, then it burned, then went numb.

She didn't scream though. She couldn't say anything with the blood in her throat. And what difference would it make? Nothing would alleviate this pain she felt, this surreal feeling of reality. This is the consequence of real life she realized. Sometimes reality happens, and it is the worst.

When she was able to see again, she found herself kneeling over, blood seeping into the gravel below her right eye, and coughing up the liquids that had found their way into her mouth. Her finger nails red from digging into her palm. She saw the mess of her right eye splatter onto the ground in front of her.

She wretched everything from her stomach instantly onto the ground.

Sound came back to her finally, and she could hear the gunfire flying over her head. Roman's men were boarding the train while her team along with JNPR was rushing towards her. She stood up slowly before collapsing once more. The pain of her remaining nerves along with her torn palms kicked in, the pain screamed at her.

"Ruby! NO!" yang screeched at the top of her lungs. Yang rushed to Ruby and lifted her head.

"Oh no..." Nora choked out the only response she could think of. They all could see Ruby's right eye lids attempting to close on empty space, forming a soggy, limp wall that disturbed them to their cores. Ruby sat there in daze.

"Jaune, grab Ruby, as terrible as it is, we need to get on that train!" Oobleck was the sole person unfazed by the sight, and remained focused on his task. Jaune bridal carried Ruby and ran with the others to board the train. Rage flared in their persons. No one would be getting away this time.

The train started immediately. They wasted no time coming up with a plan. Weiss, Blake, and Yang would go through the train itself to shut it off and fight whoever resides inside. The others would fight along the top to take care of the White Fang's Atlesian Paladins.

The three of them disappeared into the train while Nora, Oobleck, and Ren charged forward, along with the dog. Pyrrha and Jaune both carried Ruby up the train carts as it seemed starting with the caboose, carts were detaching and blowing up. They held their shields in front of them to deflect any oncoming fire the others couldn't hold back, such as a few missiles made it through that they simply repelled.

The train carts stopped detaching behind, so Jaune took this chance.

"Set her down!" he shouted. He reached into his bag and pulled out some hydrogen peroxide. If he learned one thing from his middle school health class, it was to clean wounds before they get infected.

"Ruby! Open your eyes!" In her daze, she complied lazily. He tilted her head back.

"I'm sorry Ruby!" Jaune poured the water like substance into her empty eye. She screamed and flailed. Jaune tilted her head forward to get the liquids out.

"Just one more time! Okay Ruby?!" The sight of blood is something that Jaune was never able to stand, but he found in this situation the blood meant something. He needed to take care of her wound first then find the one who did this and kill them. There was no time to waste gawking at this reality. And it hit him. Ruby had lost a precious eye...

"Just do it!" She screamed. Ruby was fully conscious now to her dismay. She put her head back and he dumped the liquid once more. Ruby flung her head forward after a second, unable to withstand the pain. The red water pour over her face, but the pain wasn't gone. The fizzing that occurred when hydrogen peroxide makes when making contact with any unclean surface scorched her, and the sound of the fizzing emanating from inside her head drove her crazy.

"Hold still Ruby, we need to wrap it!" Pyrrha bashed another stray missile off to the side. They could see behind them holes being blown into the subway ceiling, grimm pouring in.

"There! All wrapped up!" He started to reach for some painkillers, but Ruby slapped away the syringe.

"NO! I'll be fine!" She stood up and dumped some of the cleaner on her hands and wrapped them up too. She took Crescent Rose from Jaune and recollected herself. The pain was immense, but it helped her focus, enough so to compensate for her lack of depth perception. Her anger however was greater than the pain, and she would pay back Roman in full.

"Are you going to fine?!" Jaune found it hard to believe she could stand even after all of that. He read that usually, when someone loses an eye, the shock of it kills them soon after. It made sense that she would pass that initial shock, but the pain is usually crippling anyways. He stood up too. But before he could get an answer, he spotted the train rushing towards a solid concrete wall. He grabbed Ruby in one arm, Pyrrha in the other, and clenched them tight in front of him as his back faced the oncoming wall.

There was a great amount of force, and when he came to, they were laying in the borders of a populated city, grimm flowing in.

-End Chapter 5-


	6. Chapter 6: Genesis of Death

Weiss jolted awake. She found herself inside what appeared to be the front of the roaring train where Blake paced frantically side to side eyeing the controls for any obvious brakes. Weiss's arm hurt from her last ditch attempt to defend against the White Fang member with the chainsaw. Piecing together that Blake had taken her to relative safety, she regained her wits and spoke up, much to Blake's surprise.

"Do you have this handled?"

"Oh my dust!" Blake gasped. "I don't know- I don't know how to control a train!"

"Well figure something out! I'm going on top to help out!"

She dragged over a small crate to stand on, the hatch being a few feet out of reach. Turning the wheel, Weiss popped the hatch and climbed out to the sight of stolen military tech she didn't recognize combating Ren and Nora, soon joined by Yang. The wind rushed

past her with haste, leaving her deaf to Yang's screams of warning.

"Wall!" Yang screamed from several train carts away as she turned to run.

"Mall? Wha... wall...?" Weiss realized all too late what Yang meant.

Blake panicked. The choice was down to two levers on the control panel, both having any useful labels worn away from use from a past era. The one on the left was in what appeared to be the middle position and the one on the right was all the way back pointing at her. It became a matter of common sense at that point she thought. The one on the left was in the half way position because the train would have to be given a set amount of power to move a certain speed obviously. The one on the right was all the way back because a conductor or in this case a White Fang member wouldn't run a train with the brakes on, that would unnecessarily overheat the brakes, and if one were to apply the brakes in case of an emergency, the deceleration would lean the operator towards the brakes, allowing them to brake even if they were somehow weak in the arms. The same applied to the power lever... probably. She only took the moment to process all of her logic, but she spotted the tunnel wall approaching rapidly through the small window of the train.

Her eyes widened in terror and she slammed both levers forward with no hesitation.

There was no resistance in her right hand. The lever flew out of the control panel, the bolts having been removed in case of this contingency. On the other hand, pushing the left lever made the train jerk forward with greater speed.

"No..." was all Blake had the time to whimper before everything went white.

Yang reached out for Ruby who disappeared behind Jaune along with Pyrrha. A modicum of relief came to Yang for if someone else was taking care of Ruby, her worry subsided even if it was just a little. Before she knew it, she didn't feel the ground beneath her as she was launched through the air. Looking down, she saw the train had stopped just outside the wall of the tunnel as well as the shallow gash the pink haired girl had left on her stomach when she attempted to execute her. The red and black orb and lady reappeared in Yang's mind, questions swarming her appearance. That train of thought shattered with the real one however when she bounced off the ground several times before sliding to a stop in front of an older business man.

Weiss limpidly climbed through the window of the shop she had fortunately flown through, breaking her fall instead on the sheet rock inside. She had smashed her right leg and her non dominant arm, cut up her back with glass, and had the wind knocked out of her, but took the pain in stride.

"Wow -ha- I -ha- really -ha- fl-ew- ha- ha- damn -ha- that's- that's- impressive..."

She could only manage short breaths that cut through her words before she could finish them. Drawing her sword behind her back, she swiped at the glass lingering like wasps. Glancing at her sword, blood ran down the blade creating a consistent patter along the ground.

Blake kicked hard against the metal trapping her inside the train. From what she could make out, the front had caved in and pinned her against the rear wall, the front being shattered into segments of bent steel held barely together by stubborn rivets. It was a miracle she wasn't killed she thought. She probably would have if she didn't jump backwards at the last second to slow her relative velocity. What seemed like a minute she spent kicking with all of her strength until enough clearance was made along one of the shattered seams for her to crawl out. Her allies were already engaged with the Grimm that came spilling in through the tunnel. Most of the citizens that were in the area ran as quickly as they could, but Blake spotted more than an acceptable amount of non aura users ravaged by the Grimm, unable to defend themselves when the beast broke in.

For better or for worse, the Grimm seemed to be more attracted to living prey, as the black beings congregated to the students when the easier prey had gathered too much distance. Blake cut through several Grimm when she finally assessed their circumstances. Weiss, Yang, and Ruby were having a hard time and were on the verge of feinting, she was relatively unharmed from her train fight with Roman, but was still none of the less tired, Oobleck was no where to be seen, and Ren and Nora were still fighting at full strength but were soon to be overwhelmed. 'At this rate, without reinforcements, we'll lose...' Blake concluded.

At that moment, Weiss made one final attack summoning a fantastically large ice blade that destroyed the crowding Grimm then fell to her knees unconscious. Ruby took notice.

"Yang! Take Weiss and run to safety!." Demanded Ruby.

Yang would've normally resisted such a command, but seeing Weiss defenseless made Yang's mind for her. She rushed forward, giving a off hand punch to a Beowolf on the way and tackling a charging boarbutusk aimed for Weiss. She wrestled it to a neck grab, giving it a passionate twist till it's neck made enough sounds that Yang was sure it had sufficiently died. Then she shotgun punched it's stretched throat. Snatching Weiss, Yang darted off to cover.

To no one's and everyone's surprise, Ruby refused to go without a fight. In her rage, she stabbed the ground in a vengeful fit, unloading her entire stock of ammunition into the Grimm. She resorted to lining up her only eye along her scythe and managed to accurately punch holes through all the smaller Grimm flooding the city. When she ran dry of bullets, she dashed forward headstrong into the face of a deathstalker planning on piercing it's eye.

"Ruby no!" Cried Jaune.

'No one can deny me my right to fight' thought Ruby. The thought that other's might try to pull her from combat from this point on for her safety upset her. The battlefield was her home, and she wouldn't let anyone take that away from her except herself. She lost focus, and forgot that her center was now shifted to her right, her left eye being her only perspective. Her swing struck to the left an inch...

and a foot short.

The deathstalker slapped the small Rose with it's mighty claw and sent her flying once again.

"Ruby!" Cried Nora this time, despair replacing the authoritative tone Jaune used.

"Blake! Your turn! Take Ruby and run!" Jaune commanded.

Ruby started to stand ready to fight, both Jaune and the Grimm.

"Screw you Jaune!" She made another mad dash.

Blake shadowed Ruby understanding what Jaune was concerned with. Blake found herself at another cross roads however, where either she let Ruby fight and possibly die, or she left JNPR totally alone to deal with the Grimm. The decision was made for her fairly quickly. Ruby slammed into the face of a Nevermore, stunning herself. Blake complied with Jaune's wishes and saved Ruby in mid air, then made way from the scene.

"There's too many!" shouted Ren.

"Jaune what do we do?!" Pyrrha asked in desperation. There were simply too many for them to handle all at once, Grimm still flooding into the city. Jaune took a moment, staring into Pyrrha's vivid green eyes, his fear morphing into something between courage and anger towards the darkness staining the sunshine of the dawn.

"We kill them all!" His response shocked Ren and Pyrrha. Nora couldn't hear over the sound of smashing heads.

"It's simple, Ren, take care of the stragglers that make it through past me and Pyrrha, NORA!, KILL BIG GRIMM!" Jaune bellowed.

"Aye aye!" Nora obliged with delight.

Jaune charged forward, slashing at all the Grimm he could before plugging up the left side of the hole, spearheading the oncoming traffic. He could hear bouts of explosions, no doubt from Nora, but otherwise couldn't hear beyond the Grimm engulfing him leaving only a small circle of death around him as he wildly slashed to the left, right, up, down, left, right, left, diagonal right, diagonal left, right, left and so on. The bodies began to pile, so Jaune trudged forward shield up stabbing in front of him.

At that moment, when all he could see was black, and all he could feel was the weight of his blade and the bodies he walked over, he regressed into his memories, recollecting a small snippet he chuckled at for the context of his situation. The snippet was from this old quote made by some anonymous guy, no one knew who, and the snippet read "I am become death."

-Some time later-

The military made their big entrance, exterminating all of the remaining Grimm, team CVFY handling most of it before they could. Jaune sat exhausted and dazed on top of a mound of dissipating Grimm corpses stacked upon the front of the train. He prodded the blisters that had both formed and popped in a matter of seconds on his hands during their attack. The rest of his team formed at the bottom of his black throne, all trading stares.

"I guess we won." Ren broke the silence.

They traded some more stares, then they traded chuckles. Eying the copious amounts of Grimm littering the tunnel entrance, Jaune formed a pistol with his two fingers and thumb, placing it in his mouth. With a small gesticulation, he went limp and laid back, letting out a long sigh of muscle pain. They all took to laying down where ever they were.

Finally the transports came flying in and put all of team RWBY except for Blake on stretchers and wheeled them into the troop transport. An exhausted, dazed Jaune was reminded of the gravity of the situation when he saw the troops lining up the bodies of the citizens who didn't get out fast enough. That and the sight of Ruby's head bandages that he put on her himself as she was wheeled by.

They were white when he put them on.

They were red like roses now.

-End of Chapter 6-


	7. Chapter 7: Cool Down

The plump nurse came through the medical office doors letting out a triumphant breath, dropping her clipboard onto a nearby table adorned with plastic flowers. JNPR and RWBY had made it back to Beacon by military transport, Weiss and Yang having been patched up on the way back. There in the school's medical waiting room, the two teams waited in awkward anxiety on Ruby's condition. They figured that she was going to survive seeing as how she fought with zeal earlier, but how she came out of it was a different question. The nurse finally answered the question on everyone's mind.

"Well, she's going to be okay." She knew they were sitting on the edges of their seats, and found that it would be cruel to drag it out. They all let out sighs of relief.

"She obviously survived the initial shock, and she only got a minor infection that I managed to treat with antibiotics. I saw that there was some skin scarring on the inside of the socket, so I assumed one of you disinfected it right?"

"Yeah, we... we did." Jaune said.

Jaune grimaced. He remembered Ruby's screams and her face when he cleaned out her eye, wishing he hadn't remembered. Even if he did the right thing, he felt guilt all the same for being the one putting Ruby through that.

"Good job, she could've gotten something worse if the first aid treatment wasn't done right, or rather at all," She shrugged.

"Yeah, so, I left a mediwrap on her nerves so that maybe when she's ready she can get a whole eye transplant-

"When would that be?!" Asked Yang, tears in her throat.

"-Only problem is, unlike most body parts we can grow synthetically, eyes are still over complicated bits of hardware that we need to get from organ donors. Properly preserved eyes are hard to come by, so I'll put her on a waiting list. It could take many years though..."

The teenagers looked at each other, the same few ideas passing through their minds before realizing there was no right answer to this conundrum. All save one realized this.

"So if we killed someone, brought the eye here, you could use it?" Inquired Nora.

In unison Ren, Jaune, and Pyrrha face palmed at Nora's brazenness.

The nurse laughed. "That would make you very good friends as well as really imprisoned criminals! Anyways, if you want to talk to her you can, but be careful, she's high on painkillers."

The nurse twirled around picking up her clip board then went to the main receptionist desk to record her papers. The seven teenagers walked through the loose swing doors and into the baby blue hallway, leading themselves to the room that Ruby was resting in. As they opened the door, Ozpin and Glynda pardoned themselves from the room, bidding Ruby wishes for her health. While Glynda had a cold face, Ozpin seemed distressed.

Ruby greeted them in a sweet, innocent yet off kilter manner. She was still wearing her regular clothes, dirty as they were. The teenagers squeezed into the small room, surrounding the rose's bed. It was hard to miss the blood soaked bandages sitting in the trashcan behind her bed, the cloth hard and stiff with the fluids. Yang couldn't hold it in anymore and burst into tears, grabbing Ruby and hugging her tightly.

"I'm so sorry Ruby! I was supposed to protect you and now-" Yang choked on her words, bawling all the while.

"Oh~ it's okay sis! You know? I really love you guys~ I just thought that~ y-you guys should just know that! I love you guys!"

Ruby smiled and patted Yang's back, talking as if she had walked straight out of a bar. Everyone cracked a smile and a tear. They all felt guilty for not being there in time. For them, it was their incompetence that had bore Ruby's injury, and the guilt burned them deeply. Weiss placed her un-bandaged hand on Ruby's leg.

"We love you too Ruby..." It took all of the duelist' effort to keep eye contact with Ruby, the rose's stare being a smack in the face for her, for all of them.

"You know what Ozpin~ I love that guy by the way~ you know what Ozpin said to me?" The rose asked.

They all leaned forward.

"Tomorrow~ or was it the day after?~ I'll, I'll get to talk to Roman, face to face, and~ oh I don't love that guy, I dun love that guy~ I'm gonna smack'em'intheFACE! And er... I'll kill him! Yep~ yes sir..." She waved her finger around with a drunken passion, pointing to the heavens to prove her conviction of punishment. She smacked Yang in the face without realizing it.

"So Roman was the one who did this to you? Well he better watch out then, right?" Pyrrha confided Ruby, Blake nodding in agreement. The others reeled back in their revelations, surprised in the fact that it didn't cross their minds who had hurt Ruby.

"Yep~ say... what time is it? I'm really sleepy~"

"It's um," Weiss looked at the clock, "it's four thirty seven."

"Wow~ are days getting longer now? Because I'm so tired..." She snuggled up into a ball and closed her eyes, an adorable sight to behold.

"If that's the case, then we should leave so you can get your sleep then." Pyrrha pulled the sheets over Ruby and tucked her hair behind her ear. Yang helped on her side of the bed doing the same, jealous that the Champion beat her to the chase. The bruiser gave Ruby a kiss on the cheek before saying goodnight, signaling the others to leave.

Jaune lingered just a moment longer than the others, but as he left the room as the last one, he heard Ruby gently call to him.

"Wait, hold on" she whispered.

"Yes..." Jaune walked back to her.

She reached out and took hold of his sleeve, her eye flickering between consciousness and sleep.

"Thank you..." her words rolled off her lips in italic, hitting Jaune like a sledgehammer.

He took her small hand and clenched it tightly in both of his hands, bringing it to his face.

He shed a tear before whispering to the rose, "I'm never going to let this happen again."

The knight kissed her hand and laid it back down into her chest. She scrunched up and finally passed out, a smile lining her face. The boy took his leave at last.

-Two days later-

Ruby and Yang watched closely as the door to Roman's small holding cell opened to reveal exactly who they came for. The red and blue Atlas guards stepped to the side to allow the two girls a clear line of sight.

"I'll give you ten minutes." Ironwood walked away, arms folded behind his back.

The girls stepped forward, Roman adjusted his eyes and exclaimed with glee.

"Ah! So good to see you Red, I hoped you enjoyed watching that show of Grimm I put on for you! Say, I saw-"

His taunts were interrupted by a heavy punch to the face from the bruiser. She followed up with a slam in the gut. Both guards kept looking straight ahead staring intently at the walls.

"Shut the hell up you bastard!" Screeched Yang as she pulled away, stomping in fury.

"I just wanted to let you know Roman..." Ruby whispered, closing in on his face, "...if you ever get out of here, I'm going to find you, and I'm going to do the exact same thing to you that you did to me. Except that I will do it one eye at a time."

She pressed her thumbs into the bottom of either of his eyes. Roman held back a growl, but his contempt showed clearly. She pressed his head back, exposing his throat.

"And after I take good care of you, I'll kill you..."

She drew her finger along his neck a felt something was off. She broke her glare from his eyes and spotted an obvious recent wound on his neck. Yang gave a curious look to it. Roman picked up on their surprise.

"Like it? Your kitty cat Blake-y left a nice cat scratch. She couldn't go all the way though, so here I am." To their chagrin, he grinned widely, albeit grimacing in pain.

To them it looked like Blake got him into a neck lock with her blade and almost sawed through but stopped before she could kill him.

"It's what you deserve you son of a bitch." Yang spat on his face.

Ruby backed off, she had it with Roman and didn't want to spend anymore time in his presence. The comfort of his shackled hands began to wore off, and his grinning face struck a chord of fear in Ruby's heart. Feeling feint, she strode off, Yang in tow.

"Ahhh... leaving so soon?" he said with mock disappointment in his voice, leaning forward to catch a fleeting glance of the girls before his cell closed once again, leaving him in pitch black.

The two girls stepped out of the building and into it's open entry way courtyard, the cold biting their exposed skin.

"What's wrong?" Yang asked with concern, but answered her own question when she asked it out loud. "Never mind."

Ruby looked up to see the nebulous grey they knew as clouds moving in on the darkening sky, the faint moon hidden, and the first snow of winter falling from grace. A snowflake wondered the sky aimlessly until it's life as pure white crystals ended by the touchdown upon Ruby's face, her little warmth being an inferno to the little snowflake, plenty to destroy it's intricate beauty. Ruby felt cold.

Yang looked into Ruby's eye. She could've sworn it was silver normally, not grey.

-End chapter 7-


	8. Chapter 8: Lone Wolf and Pack

**I'm sorry I've been slow in adding chapters, it's just that november is a particularly busy month for me, so updates are going to be scarce until it all blows over. I hope you enjoy, and I bid you a good day... by the way I would get your itunes or youtube ready if you want to get the full effect of the moment... **

Under a hidden moon, the snow lay silent like sleep throughout the Emerald Forest, betraying the reality of hostility pervading it's woods. The cold winter leaving the scene devoid of it's namesake color, white snow and black bark paint the landscape. Inside the grey ruins that annually house the artifacts used in Beacon's entry exam, a boy sits down in front of a bundle of sticks with a warm flame dancing upon the offering. In the center of the brittle broken pillars Jaune settled himself as if on a stage, the curtains drawing.

He takes off his black gloves to reveal his typical fingerless gloves, and stuffs them into his tan frock coat, then precedes to fix his beanie cap, the cold nipping at his ears. He picks up his acoustic guitar, cradling it gently in his lap and strums the chords for a moment. He tunes for a moment longer, finally deciding he's ready. Jaune slows his breathing, finding it incredibly easy to swallow the fears that once paralyzed him less than half a year ago, and his fingers started. Getting into the rhythm, Jaune kept playing the same few chords to warm up. The red eyes of familiar beast glistened with sinister desire, eyeing their prey helpless and in the dark, their turf. Descending from shadows came the Grimm in droves. Then Jaune started playing with heart.

**The song is Wonder Wall by Oasis for those with ready with headphones.**

The cold strings were unwelcoming to his fingers, but they had already been calloused and numbed to the pain. The guitar echoed throughout the woods, rising the farther Grimm from their slumber and ignorance of his location, while the present Beowolfs encircled the boy, waiting for him to make his move.

"_Today is going to be the day that they're gonna to throw it back to you..." _ Jaune sung, eyes closed.

The Grimm closed in on the boy, raging towards him as if their being depended on his death only to be met by their own. Pyrrha intercepted them on one side, Weiss on the other.

"_By now, you should've somehow realized what you gotta do.._."

Nora smashed, Ren lit the black of night with flashes of his blue dust rounds.

_"I don't believe that anybody feels the way I do about you now..."_

The red eyes of the Grimm signifying their life flickered out with the intervention by Ruby, bodies in the dark sinking into the snow limply.

_"Back beat, the word is on the street, that the fire in your heart is out..."_

Ruby swung wildly, spinning with haste, hacking down the beast in an ill attempt to drown her frustrations. Her scythe gets caught in particularly thick tree.

_"I'm sure you've heard it all before, but you never really had a doubt..."_

Weiss gutted the Boarbutusk making it's move on a defenseless Ruby while Pyrrha kicks Crescent Rose out of it's jam.

_"I don't believe that anybody feels the way I do about you now..."_ Jaune chuckles at their rescue.

Ruby dashes away ricocheting from tree to tree dicing at darting shadows across the blue snow. Ruby's cuts occasionally shallow.

_"And all the roads we have to walk are winding..."_

Working with the quivering illumination of the fire, the joint teams work their profession with silence.

_"And all the lights that lead us there are blinding..."_

Many more Grimm file through the trees aiming for Jaune at the epic-center, just as planned.

_"There are many things that I would like to say to you, but I don't know how..."_

A line of corpses begin to wrap around Jaune, his focus unhindered by the slaughter two feet from his face.

_"Because maybe... You're gonna be the one that saves me... And after all... You're my wonder wall..." _

Jaune threw smiles at all of his visible team mates. Ruby broke her eye contact by pulling her fur lined hood over her head before storming off to slay more Grimm. Pyrrha got caught up in the moment. As she figured, Ruby was on another rampage, Nora killed with glee, Weiss was covering Ruby, and Ren was chasing stragglers, so she should watch Jaune. She settled in front of the fire opposite of the Knight, pulling her cloak tighter and rested on one leg, relaxing the other, focusing only on his voice.

"_Today was gonna be the day_

_But they'll never throw it back to you_

_By now you should've somehow_

_Realized what you're not to do..._"

The boy avoided looking at her during his verse, and this deliberation made Pyrrha self conscience.

_"I don't believe that anybody feels the way I do_

_about you now..._"

The boy made sure to look at the champion this time, and this made Pyrrha blush.

"Oh you..." She folded her arms and looked away in defiance, all the while searching for any remaining Grimm.

Jaune played the rest of his song, but the extermination continued for another ten minutes, corpses long dead already dissipating. Once Jaune was done acting as audio bait, he stuck to the fire, starting a pot of stew for his inevitably hungry team mates. Still attracting Grimm by virtue of being the only source of light for miles, Pyrrha stood guard.

After everyone had recovered from the breach of Vale, the Vytal Tournament was moved to a later date to allow recollection of assets and for additional missions to be completed by the teams at Beacon. Between JNPR and RWBY, they all agreed that it would be good for Ruby to train on simple extermination missions to adjust for her lost eye, but they found any mention of her eye and rehabilitation drove her into a fit. The symptoms of winter came quickly, and the two teams have spent the past week doing a wipeout every night and a patrol every day. During the daytime, Ruby practices using Jaune and Pyrrha as targets.

"Here's a trick I learned when I was younger, look... turn your body to the right so that your left eye is center and lined up with your center of gravity and your target." Pyrrha instructed Ruby during one of their practices, the target being Jaune's shield.

"Alright..." grumbled Ruby, willing to learn a trick but felt like Pyrrha was coddling her.

"Now extend Crescent Rose along this line tying your center of gravity, your good eye, and your target. Hold it out straight. So how long is she? 6'3" something?"

"Around there..." once again grumbled Ruby. She held her massive weapon in place as the blade held it's weight, her thumb riding the long handle just before the scope and trigger.

"Now imagine it as a ruler. The more you do this, the more depth you'll perceive quicker. Now focus on your thumb."

Ruby looked at the thumb on her limp hand.

"The other thumb" corrected Pyrrha. Ruby scowled "Now trace a line along the ground starting from your thumb all the way to your target."

"Huh..." Ruby understood what she meant by getting depth. Before, Jaune was just a cut out somewhere ambiguously far away from her, but now she had a grounded idea of where he was in relative space. Not perfect, but it was a start. She wondered what Pyrrha's angle was on this.

"Now attack."

Ruby dashed with a tinge of hope at what seemed to be her escape from incompetence and career destroying handicap, but overshot and swung behind Jaune altogether. With no stop in momentum, Jaune read the attack and dropped his shield and caught Ruby, getting sent ten feet back into snow still holding Ruby. She straightened out her back and sat up, getting a clear view of her compromising position. Jaune was on his back with his wind knocked out of him and Ruby straddling his crotch. Thankful for having been wearing a long dress instead of her regular skirt, she still had rosy cheeks and sweaty palms and stood to her feet as quickly as possible before darting back to Pyrrha for a second try, albeit flustered. A few rose petals left by her semblance found their way into Jaune's mouth, further complicating his current breathing issue.

"RUBY YOU..." Pyrrha took a deep breath, "-you have to just practice some more, it's not a instantaneous skill." She folded her arms and gripped her biceps hard to calm herself.

'Is she trying to prove to me that I can't do this?' thought Ruby, eyeing Pyrrha cynically.

"Rea- (cough, cough) ready!" called out Jaune, holding his shield low to hide a member of his that had risen without permission.

Once again Ruby sped forward, but to mixed emotions, as fortunately she struck Jaune's shield although on the corner, not center, but unfortunately the tip of Crescent Rose broke off and smacked her in the cheek.

Jaune laughed at the memory of Ruby's mini freak out while he stirred the stew he had half-made. For Jaune, it was a guilty pleasure he couldn't deny. Ruby absolutely loosing it and throwing her scythe to the ground and stomping it all the while screaming in rage and clenching her face in pain was adorable if as well tragic. He and Pyrrha had to hug her for a good five minutes to keep her from dismantling her weapon before she cooled off and fell asleep in their arms standing up.

After that incident, they noticed that Blake's Gambol Shroud pistol pieces and Yang's Ember Celica were rusting in the moisture where ever the paint or stain had worn away, and Jaune's sword was dull, so they decided that Blake and Yang would take the weapons in need of repair back to the workshop at Beacon and fix them back up, while everyone else continued the search and destroy.

"Ah man! Why does this have to happen to me?!" Yang complained.

"Because you two decided not forge your weapons with rust resistant alloys. My Myrtenaster is stainless steel, Pyrrha uses red stain and takes care of her equipment, I think Ren's pistols are... wait, are those actual Jade?" Weiss tried to tone down the condescension, but it surfaced anyways.

Yang repeated Weiss mock-fully "' I use stainless steel' yeah and look where that takes you! Look at that edge and point!"

Weiss gasped to signify that offense had been taken. She whipped out her rapier and examined it.

"NO! She's right! Why?!" The point had chipped off completely somewhere along the line, probably when she stabbed the ground in the train fighting that chainsaw psycho, and the edge had a kink for every heavy attack she blocked.

"Thats metallurgy 101 right there really, stainless steel is stiff, strong, doesn't rust, but is somewhat brittle and unusable in weapons unless it is aura augmented. Forged steel is the strongest, heaviest, and rustiest stuff you'll find. Hardened steel..." Jaune stopped when he realized that Weiss's glare meant that she was plotting his death within the next ten seconds.

"Anyways, Sis, what are you going to do here without your scythe?"

"Don't you dare suggest I go too. I brought my mini backup scythe on one of our supply sleds, so... yeah."

"And I brought a guitar..." All heads snapped at Jaune, their reaction demanding an explanation.

The knight straightened up and said with unfitting confidence and pride, "I'm going to be bait!"

"Oh dear..." was all Pyrrha could say.

Jaune took out a stack of cups and poured some of his stew into each one. By now, Ren and Nora were done, Weiss was in sight returning, but Ruby was still busy hunting.

"Leeks or celery?" Inquired Ren, hoping for leeks.

"Um, uh, oh yeah, I used the last of our celery along with our carrots and potatoes and salt... and Blake's fox." He handed a cup to each of them.

"I didn't take you for one to skin and cook a freshly dead animal." Weiss inputed with surprised.

"I wasn't, not until Blake dropped it in my lap" Jaune shuddered. "Anyways, tomorrow we head back to Beacon. Mission accomplished. Then it's the tournaments the week after."

"It's a plan!" Giggled Nora.

After some time eating, they started to unfold their bed rolls along with a white tarp to cover them, hiding them entirely. It occurred only once they were crawling under the tarp when they heard another sniper round that Ruby still hadn't returned.

"I'll go" volunteered Jaune without hesitation.

"You don't have a weapon though..." Pyrrha thought to point out.

"I have my shield-"

"-dunce" said Weiss.

"-and you could come along."

"Of course. Where you go I go." Pyrrha stated proudly.

Jaune felt warmer regardless of the thirty below freezing temperatures they were feeling. He also had hope in finding Ruby as all they had to do was follow the gun shots to find her. Walking out into the woods, Pyrrha wrapped her large cloak around Jaune and her, much to his appreciation, and they trudged on.

-Ten minutes later-

In the middle of a clearing in front of a cave stood Ruby, knee deep in snow. She looked up to the sky and saw the moon was still hidden behind grey haze. Regardless, she knew why she stood at the entrance to this cave, and she would fulfill this urge. She had to kill bigger prey and prove herself, she would prove to the others that she was still capable of fighting or die trying. She leaned into the darkness and pondered for a moment before coming to a decision.

"Woof!" She echoed into the cave, then backed up 20 paces.

The ground trembled for what Ruby believed too long for her tastes. A Deathstalker burst out of the entrance, saw Ruby and went for a straight kill shot. She took the hit directly and was flung into the snow. After getting up, Ruby growled, blood foaming at the teeth. She aimed to take out the stinger first, and went off of that plan. She tightened the string keeping her fur lined hood together to brace against the numbing cold, then started her pin point strikes in the missing piece of armor on the Grimm's tail. Without it she could attack it from behind and the sides.

Pyrrha and Jaune made it into the scene only after Ruby had taken multiple hits already from what they could tell. Ruby had totally lost all cognitive functions and was missing every shot she took to hit the tail. She received another blow, but the Knight and the Champion took her place.

"Pyrrha! Funny bone!" He shouted.

Utilizing their shields, they flanked the Deathstalker diverting it's attention and splitting it's abilities and reached it's pincer's elbows.

"NOW!" He ordered.

Jaune stabbed the elbow of the Deathstalker's right pincer with the point of his shield, and Pyrrha altogether cut off the left. Jaune tried it again and again until finally the elbow fell apart, the Deathstalker rampaging all the while. Ruby stood up once again, gave a battle cry, but before she could charge, Jaune stopped her.

"Ruby! NO!"

"STOP IT! YOU CAN'T STOP ME FROM FIGHTING-"

"-GET UNDERNEATH IT AND IMPALE IT!"

Ruby stopped. Pyrrha was riding the beast, occupying the stinger while Jaune bashed it's face in and kept it in a daze, and Jaune gave her an order to finish it off. They were fine with her fighting she realized, they've just been worried about her not thinking when doing it. It struck her like a brick wall when her misunderstanding dawned on her, her seeing their concern as intervention with her dreams as a huntress seemed so idiotic to her now.

"AYE AYE SIR!"

She disappeared underneath the snow like a mole. A moment later, the spear end of her mini Crescent Rose pierced the underside of the Deathstalker's throat, the associated rose rising a moment later, redeemed.

Buried underneath the Deathstalker and waiting for Jaune and Pyrrha to budge it enough for her to get her legs un-caught, Ruby looked up to the sky and noticed the most peculiar thing. The clouds hiding the moon this entire time finally moved on, showing the brilliant bulb in all of it's glory, the light illuminating the girl's eyes, showing her true colors.

"Wow, isn't that just tacky..." Ruby laughed.

"What was that?" asked Pyrrha.

"The way things work out... ah, never mind."

-End Chapter 8-


	9. Chapter 9: Dialogues Between Friends

"What's that?"

Pyrrha noticed that Jaune had a fancy bag of coffee ground in his hands as he sat down in his cushy seat. The two of them were enjoying a day in Vale, finding themselves warming up in a popular coffee shop, Darkbucks™, the inside being decorated and fitted to a modern log-cabin feel with a fireplace and a general warmness pervading it. Jaune took the seat opposite of Pyrrha at one of the tables by the gold stained glass windows which only added to the shop's warm glow. It also helped the building was filled with jovial customers.

"It's for Weiss. You know how the holidays are approaching, so I'm starting my shopping early." Jaune nestled into the cushions, finding them to be the most comfortable seats he's used in a long time.

"Are you sure coffee is the right gift if that's the case?" She felt a twinge of jealousy, but stopped herself figuring that with the way Jaune is, he's probably going to get everyone a gift.

"Didn't you know? She can't make it two days without her coffee. She even brought some on our last mission."

"Alright then. I assume that's good coffee you bought, right?" Pyrrha thought she could at least make sure that Jaune was on the right track.

"Oh yeah, it's some of their premium. Look, see... it's got the Critics of Vale stamp of approval on it even." He handed the package to her over the table. She couldn't help but to be impressed with the beauty of the packaging it came in, so neat, so square, so decorative.

"Well good job then, I'm sure she'll love it. Ha... I actually want some now." She handed it back before leaning forward and resting her elbows onto the smooth oak table.

"Ha, no. To be honest, I can't imagine you with coffee. I mean... you, jittery? Ehhhh, nah. So yeah, I've got that, now I just have to shop for everyone else now, which won't be as easy..." Pyrrha giggled to herself for predicting Jaune so easily. "...but I have a good few weeks till St. David's day."

"True, but starting tomorrow for a week will be all tournaments" added Pyrrha.

"Oh shoot!" He slapped his forehead in embarrassment, "I totally forgot about the tournaments."

"Don't worry, you'll have plenty of time to shop-"

"-No, I haven't signed up for it yet!" He said with distress.

Pyrrha laughed. "You don't sign up for it Jaune, you simply attend tomorrow and they quickly test you. They then set up a bracket for the next 6 days." She spent a moment to think about how cute she thought Jaune was when he was worried. She placed her hand over his resting hand.

"Relax, it'll be alright..." With this, he took a deep breath, leaning back into his warm seat. Pyrrha withdrew her hands spotting a young brunette boy carrying drinks over to their table.

"A hot caramel chocolate swirl, and a amber tea. There you go..." he said as he carefully handed them their hot drinks. The two of them thanked him and he nodded before going back to the kitchen.

"Aw! Burnt my tongue!" laughed Jaune.

"Phew... you're right, they are hot. They've got a few minutes until they cool." She put down her sweet tea and picked up a pamphlet resting on the end of the table, thumbing through all the pages and options.

"My dust... they serve so many drinks here, look at this..." she flashed the pages to Jaune.

"Ha, there's like at least 100 different coffees there, that's crazy. Their kitchen isn't that big." He looked over to the bar table that was setup, not even a kitchen, leading him to think many of those drinks in the pamphlet were just gimmicks one way or another.

"Well, they spent the time naming them, listen to this; Dragon Blend, Grimm Black, Atlas Iced, Vale- ha- Vale Vappuccino, Dusty Dream, Vytal Vanilla Bean, Vacuo Sunshine, Mistral Mint Blend, Palace Peppermint..."

-Five Minutes Later-

"...and Moo- Moo- oh! no, no! Moo- Moon Detonation!" Pyrrha rocked back and forth laughing, her sides aching.

"That doesn't even make sense! That doesn't even sound like coffee!" Jaune was about ready to topple over onto the ground and roll, his cheeks hurting trying to keep his laughter toned down in a public place. He settled it by keeling over and slamming the table lightly a few times.

-Five Minutes Later-

"After you, milady..." Jaune held open the door for the girl, letting her go first.

"Thank you, sir. But really, honestly, that was probably the best Amber tea I've ever had. I can't believe that we didn't know about this place earlier." She shivered, wrapping herself tightly with her brown cloak.

He followed her out, linking their arms to stay close and warm. "Yeah, that was a good hot chocolate, they take their drinks seriously. Speaking of serious..." Jaune pulled out his scroll while directing them down the snow covered boulevard, the sun setting over the sea.

"...Here we go. Yeah, it's -3º fahrenheit right now. It got cold fast this year."

"I've noticed." Pyrrha could feel the goosebumps running along her arms and neck to a furious degree. "The mission was cold, but it seems to have gotten colder since last week." She began to wonder where Jaune was taking them, as he seemed to be searching through the windows quite focused. A couple minutes passed before he found what he was looking for.

"Hmmm. There it is! Come on, lets go!"

Jaune lead Pyrrha out of the snow and into a clothing shop, the interior's walls matching the outside with red brick, the floor being a cold black concrete with high, dark rafters and seemingly floating spotlights illuminating the tidy store. Racks held most of the hand made merchandise, a few mannequins lining the walls with top brand clothing with a tailor tucked away hard at work in the back corner and a clerk at the front. Although not exactly warm inside like the coffee shop, it was better than being outside at the moment.

"Okay, go ahead and look around. I'll be right back." Jaune rushed off leaving a somewhat confused Pyrrha. She didn't think too much of it for long, finding more interest in examining some jeans at the front. Before she knew it, she was wrapped up in a crimson cloak, with Jaune clasping it together with a gold leafed emblem that was identical to Pyrrha's. The flowy fabric was soft and warm to the touch, but thick enough to break wind, immediately getting rid of any residual goosebumps she had left from outside.

"I know that you borrowed that brown cloak from Beacon, and it doesn't look very warm, so I thought 'Hey! Pyrrha should have her own winter clothing!' and here we are! What do you think?" said Jaune in an curious mix of confidence and nervousness.

She smiled, "It's perfect! but wait- did you plan this trip then?" She thought that if he had found the perfect cloak so quickly, then he must have known where it was in the first place, and the clasp that came with it seemed too perfect.

"Kindaaa maybe yes" he juggled air with his hands to feign ignorance, but Jaune knew he would have to come clean. "I couldn't stand to see you walk around in that thin cloak, it made me uncomfortable. I looked around and found this, and I think it matches you."

"What about the clasp? You didn't just find it did you?" Pyrrha knew that if he did just come across it, it would've been suspect.

"I made that in the forge a couple days ago after I find the cloak." He confessed, rubbing his toes into the ground to avert his gaze.

She folded her arms and turned her back to him, hiding her wide, silly grin, then said with tired sarcasm "Well I can't stop you if you've made your mind then. Now we just to pay for it..." It just occurred to her the potential for awkwardness, seeing as how it probably wasn't going to be cheap, and how she would be right there to see Jaune pay for it because it's suppose to be a gift. She never had this problem happen to her before, but she knew that eventually it had to happen and dreaded the day she would have to deal with it.

"Ah yeah, I uh... already bought it..." Jaune felt it was better to leave out the fact that he used his body for measurements for the tailor, betting that it wouldn't please Pyrrha knowing that what fit on Jaune fit her really well. This thought crossed her mind, but unlike what Jaune thought, she didn't see any issue if they did happen to match. She turned his chin forward, grabbing his undivided attention, and took a moment to compose herself.

"Thank you" she whispered, "I love it. It's a wonderful St. David's Day present."

"Actually it isn't for that..." Jaune spoke without completely figuring out his game plan. He was honest when he said he couldn't stand watching her walk around in the rags she was wearing over her less than modest armor, of which the metal pieces happened to freeze incredibly fast, so he had to get the cloak to her quickly, but it was originally supposed to be her D-Day present, but now he has to figure out what to get her for D-Day because it would be awkward to give everyone their gifts except her because she already got it weeks prior and wouldn't expect anything from him. At this point he was clueless but needed to bluff.

"Oh Jaune, you don't have to, this is amazing as it is" she felt terrible for baiting him, knowing that with her response, he would be obligated to carry through with another gift. For all she knew, the second gift could be something honestly trivial... or something suggestive. She refused to miss out on what Jaune planned.

"No no, I have it all planned out, you just have to wait." He started to walk out the front doors slowly, hoping the fresh air would cool him off, as well as giving him time to perfect his pokerface, the gift nonexistent at the moment in every way except for the idea of it being something. Instead of fresh air, he broke down into shivers and sharp breaths, which made for a much more convincing pokerface. It was 6 o'clock, but the sun had just fallen under the horizon, the sky barely lit the closer it gets to the horizon and dark everywhere else.

The two teenagers wandered around a bit more before heading back to Beacon, chatting the whole trip back, arms linked. Pyrrha found that her new crimson cloak really worked to keep her warm compared to the thin blanket she had essentially worn, amazed by Jaune's consideration in the matter. Upon reaching their dorm room, Nora opened the door and asked if either of them wanted to go to the forge to retrieve their weapons.

"Actually I had a paper I need to get to" said Jaune sheepishly. Spending three hours on what would be considered a date being fine, but the half hour to get the implements essential to his graduation and life a waste of time? It was an argument he decided to just leave at the need to do homework.

"I'll go with you, I need to see Mr. Cruach about Milo" Pyrrha said.

With that, Nora and Pyrrha set off to Beacon's forge, Nora immediately prying about their date.

"So how was it?" She leaned forward and whispered, all the while fluttering her hands behind her.

"It was fun." Nora was still a little of an enigma to Pyrrha. She knew if she told Nora something, Nora wouldn't tell someone else if Pyrrha didn't want her to, and Nora usually wouldn't care enough to have the urge to spill the beans, but she might just accidentally let it slip as it could just be another piece of information to her, but the main issue was that if Nora actively asked something clandestine, then it arose all the suspicion in the world what with Nora usually never asking question.

"Thats a new cloak.." she leaned even farther, looking as if she was about fall.

"Yes it is. Jaune got it for me." Pyrrha had to gauge Nora's interest in the subject by not hiding anything but not giving anything too much. They turned a corner and Nora leaned into a cartwheel and ended up walking backwards in front of Pyrrha.

"You know why a man would buy clothes for a girl, right?" Nora stretched her words and tilted her head to draw Pyrrha's interest.

"Hmmm. Why?" When Nora worded it the way she did, it seemed there could only be one answer, but she was curious where Nora would take it. She was surprised when Nora actually went in the direction her tone suggested.

Nora started in a whisper but exploded into giggles, "So he can take them off of her!"

Pyrrha magnetically dropped her sword, Milo, from her back and grabbed it, pointing it directly at Nora. She didn't know exactly why she was blushing so hard and getting so defensive, seeing as how she knew where Nora was going with it, but it was more of a playful threat than actual anger. Nora could tell just fine she was safe.

"YOU SHOULD SEE YOUR FACE!" Nora was amused to say the least.

The red head put away her sword, her stride never breaking. Nora fell back in line once she finished laughing, and proceeded to go back to her usual skipping. Nora wasn't done asking questions though.

"So why are you going with me if you could be alone with Jaune right now?"

"I need Cruach's help in getting a new lens for the forward part of the scope. It cracked after the edge kept slamming into position too fast, so I put a buffer on it, but the glass is still shattered."

"Oh! So thats why you haven't been using your rifle form recently..."

"That's the reason."

"Why are you going? Aren't team RWBY's weapons in the shop too? How were you planning on bringing all of it back if I didn't come with you?" They got to the stairs. The forge was located at ground floor, so they had to traverse a treacherous two sets of stairs... nothing too bad.

"Ruby told me they all were busy doing stuff and that they would be back late tonight after the forge closes to students, so they made it a favor."

"But how were you going to get the equipment back?"

"Oh! I'd make a fellow student carry it on their back if they didn't want broken legs..."

"Ha, right."

"Yeah, Yang said something about meeting someone, Ruby went to talk to Ozpin, and Weiss and Blake went to meet the rest of team SSSN. I don't know why though..."

"Ozpin? What do you think it's about?"

"I don't know" Nora chirped. "I don't even know who Yang is meeting, some woman was all she told me."

"Curiouser and curiouser. You first." They had reached the forge of Beacon, and entered. It was all ran by Mr. Cruach, a middle aged man with curly black hair and beard, his height and weight falling in between that of Professor Port and Doctor Oobleck. He wore black overalls over a dirty white shirt and tall brown leather boots, and kept a hot smoking pipe in his mouth at all times. From what the students had gathered, his weapon of choice was a lengthy staff where the head had a rotating choice of either a spear head or hammer head, with cross guard that folded out to become a double headed axe, and it seemed to collapse into a lengthy handle with a a cross guard and a extended blade becoming a hand-and-a-half sword, all in black stained steel. As a secondary, he carried a ornate black revolver with a pearlescent handle, which on it had no other purpose than to fire six large caliber rounds. He found himself busy at the same few busy events every year he's worked, before and after missions, and before the tournament, meaning that currently he had his hands full rebuilding, repairing, refurbishing, diagnosing, and checking up on everyone's weapons. Those that know him best are the students who are irresponsible or abuse their weapons, or just don't know how to take care of them.

"What is it?" Cruach sternly but not meanly asked. He had things to do and little time to do them, but he tried to be patient.

"We're here to collect the artifacts of team's RWBY and JNPR" stated Pyrrha, figuring Cruach is the kind of man who likes to stay focused rather than waste time with idle chit chat.

"Over there in that crate, the passcode is 82431." He pointed to his right towards a corner where crates lined up a plain table. The forge shop was a large busy room where everything had it's place. In the front left corner, finished goods and pieces in waiting rested all tidily, in the opposite corner far away all the smelting equipment, heat treatments, and molten metals found home, crafting materials and specific pieces laid on shelfs all along the walls, and drill presses, vices, saws, files, hammers, screwdriver, grinders, buffers, stains, paints, sanding belts, welders, plasma cutters, anvils, hammer presses, and two ton hydraulic forges filled the floor space in between.

Nora left to check the crate he pointed to. Pyrrha inquired about the magnifying lens for her rifle.

"Oh, that's a pretty small lens" he held the sword up to the light at a work bench next to him, "that's a 2x magnification right?"

"Yes sir." His ability to determine that impressed Pyrrha.

"Alright, you'll find another one on that wall, shelf 8, second drawer from the top."

Pyrrha nodded her head, amazed by his ability to keep track of everything in his hectic shop amidst all these students running around using his tools, probably misplacing whatever they use. Thanking him, she found the shelf he recommended which was only about a foot wide, and looked inside the second drawer from the top where sure enough, there was a lens in a pouch labeled "2x" just the right size, unmarked with any crosshairs. Going back to Nora, she took some of the burden of carrying back weapons, of which the most troublesome was Ruby's bulky Crescent rose. They thanked Cruach for the repairs and made their way back.

Upon finally getting back to their dorms, they knocked on team RWBY's door and was greeted by Weiss and Blake.

"Get inside now" Weiss said with haste, "We need to talk..."

-End of Chapter 9-

***Have any puny idea's for brand names in the RWBYverse? Feel free to shoot them this way!**

***Saint David's Day is essentially Thanksgiving and christmas combined (non-canon of course)**

***Gorm Cruach is irish for Black Steel (OC of course, but not pivotal)**

***Milo is Pyrrha's diphos/javelin/rifle.**


	10. Chapter 10: Tournament Start!

Jaune poked his sunny side up eggs with his fork, the yolk spilling out over the egg white and onto his tray. He stabbed his bacon and marinated it in the yellow liquid for a moment, then proceeded to mindlessly scarf it down. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes, exhausted from the night prior. Trying to recollect his thoughts, he played the events of last night over to make sure he didn't forget anything important. He remembered Weiss knocking on team JNPR's door talking about something important, and waiting in RWBY's room for Nora and Pyrrha to return, and met Scarlet and Sage for the first time. Jaune still couldn't decide if Scarlet was a girl or a guy. When the other two came back, Ruby explained what Ozpin told her, saying that he is no longer in charge at the moment, and that Ironwood is. She said that if anything goes wrong, he doesn't have first say, and that if anything does go wrong, follow their instincts.

"Thats uh... thats a little unsettling" Sun commented. Everyone agreed. Except Nora. To Nora it meant she had permission to smash something.

"What is there to go wrong though? I mean, Torchwick is in chains..." Neptune said.

"There's still the whole White Fang who are pretty upset with their losses-" answered Blake.

"-And the woman that infiltrated the CCT on the dance night" added Ruby.

"Yeah, one of my sources tell me there are more players with the bad guys than we know about." Yang concurred, arms folded and biting her nails.

"Wait!" Sage raised a hand to signal a time out, "The CCT was infiltrated?" he asked in disbelief.

Ruby rubbed the back of her head and looked away from the rest of them, finally nodded in affirmation.

"Don't feel guilty about that night Ruby, if it wasn't for you, we wouldn't have known about that woman" Yang put her hand on Ruby's shoulder in an attempt to comfort her.

Jaune remembered that they talked a little more on that subject, throwing around theories about the bad guy's plans before Weiss brought up what she really wanted to talk about.

"The Tournament!" She said with gusto, throwing both hands out as if to say 'Stop!'.

She rambled on about the politicians and celebrities that were attending, the parties, the news coverage, the spectators, and began to start on what the competition looked like this year. She was stopped when Pyrrha brought up the fact that maybe the White Fang would make a move during the Tournament where they could do the most damage. That's when team SSSN decided that they wouldn't be able to sleep if they were anymore afraid for their lives, and if they couldn't sleep, they wouldn't be able to fight if the bad people did attack. They left out through the window, even if they were allowed to use the hallways at this point.

Weiss then jumped right back into the looks of the competition, saying something about how she found out they would only fight against people in the same year as them and from a different academy, and that supposedly their first opponent would be someone whose style matched theirs. Pyrrha asked how come Weiss didn't know about any of this prior to entering Beacon, saying that the tournament is broadcasted annually with information about it workings widespread. Jaune himself didn't know, but that's because he never paid too much attention to anything on TV that wasn't cartoons.

She didn't say anything for a moment. Then with a cold, quiet voice, "I was a busy child. I didn't have time for trivial things outside of training." Everyone stopped where they were, aware that they had stepped on what appeared to be a land mine, and no one knew how to get the conversation back into gear.

Ren broke the silence. "So anything else you guys wanted to tell us?"

"No, that's all..." Weiss answered.

"It's late, so we should get some rest for tomorrow."

Jaune could sympathize with SSSN, because when he tried to sleep, he couldn't find that sweet release of bliss what with all of what they talked about rummaging in his mind. 'Who was that woman?' 'What was Roman's plan?' 'What is the White Fang's next move?' were all questions that kept Jaune from getting shut eye. And from what he could tell, everyone sitting at the cafeteria table with him that morning had the same experience.

The eight teenagers along with most of the students from Beacon and the visiting academies congregated into the Coliseum of Vale to be placed into the brackets. Huntsmen and Huntresses inside took on a contestant at a time in cordoned off section of the fighting grounds to determine the style of the participant. From there, they were recorded along with year and school. Yang made a point while waiting in line that the kids from Vacuo looked extremely cold, they not being used to the cold after all with their homeland being mostly desert.

"They're like 'Vacuo-sicles!" Yang excitedly claimed.

Sun, who was waiting in line with them wrapped in blankets, defended his former people. Ruby gave a quick snort, but Blake gave Yang a disappointed look. Ruby stopped smiling however when she realized she was getting looks in her direction. She figured it couldn't have been too surprising for this to happen, considering that she entered Beacon two years early and had a eye patch. Looking around, she noted that many people didn't have any visible handicaps like her. Fox had scars on his arms and appeared to be blind altogether, but he was an exception. If Ruby had to guess, she thought that most people who trained to become Huntsmen and Huntresses didn't allow themselves to be taken advantage of too often, and if they did find themselves crippled in someway, they might have to decide to give up their career. That or they died in the process of being injured so the point was not important.

The front of the line met with a curtain that hid what happened inside of the Coliseum, supposedly to keep the students from getting distracted by those in line. About one person a minute was let through the curtain by a person who had an earpiece directly connected to the tester, any longer than a minute would drive the contestants insane. Upon each teenager entering the Coliseum, they were surprised to find the arena itself, although open to the sky above it, was climate controlled and kept at a warm 70º, which came to a relief to everyone involved, especially the students of Vacuo who were concerned with fighting while wrapped up in seven layers.

The Huntress testing the line Jaune and the others were in was a older thin woman with long brown hair and grey streaks, and wore regular civilian clothes. Jaune went though the curtain where the warm air defrosted his person, and discovered that the coliseum had in fact been split into four sections to speed up the entry process.

He walked closer to her when she called out in a bored tone, "What's your name?"

"Uh, Jaune Arc!" He continued to close the distance between them, but she didn't care he was thirty feet away. She was focused on her scroll where she seemed to log in each person.

"So you did run away from home-" she said with slight amusement.

"-Wait, how did you-" Jaune didn't get to finish, as she continued without pause.

"-First year I assume, Beacon... all right. Attack me." She put her scroll in her pocket.

Normally, if someone told Jaune to attack them, he wouldn't have, but he knew this woman had tested fifty plus students before him, so she must know what's she doing. Jaune then felt stupid for assuming that the tester would have them attack dummies seeing how he has never seen a dummy in his time at Beacon, so why would the tournament have them? He charged forward, but didn't give his usual battle cry as there was no anger to be found in this scenario. He finally closed the distance and struck with all his might at the Huntress only to be halted by a solid steel rod. He stepped back expecting a evaluation.

"What are you doing? Don't stop" she said.

He went into a flurry, trying to land a hit on the woman, but every strike was futile. Jaune begun to falter, his efforts seeming totally in vain when suddenly, she said:

"All right, you pass. Come tomorrow prepared to fight against whoever and with whoever. Next!" She pointed him to a door which lead him back outside. He couldn't help but to ponder however, 'how did that woman know about me?'

Pyrrha followed after Jaune.

"Name?"

"Pyr-"

"-Never mind. Come in tomorrow ready to fight."

"But don't you need my na-"

"Everyone already knows about you Ms. Nikos"

Nora:

"...Ms., you can stop attacking now..."

Ren:

"...impressive offensive aura use for a first year..."

Weiss:

"Ah, a Schnee, Weiss correct?"

"Yes."

"Atlas I presume?"

"No, Vale, I attend Beacon."

"All right then..."

Blake:

"...I suggest using dust rounds."

"So I've heard."

Yang:

"I like your pants! They go well with your... shoes!"

"...next"

Sun:

"Don't bother bringing the blankets."

Ruby:

"Aren't you a little young to be here?"

"I got moved ahead." Ruby already didn't like this woman.

"And when did you receive that injury?" She referred to Ruby's eye.

"Three weeks ago." The woman's bored attitude broke, and took a step back.

"Are you fit to fight?" She asked with concern.

"Yes." Ruby's blood boiled; she struggled to keep from lashing out.

"All right then, lets proceed." The woman's easy acceptance of Ruby's answer took the air out of her rage, leaving her a little confused.

-Next day-

Returning back to the Coliseum of Vale, Jaune discovered that the hundreds of students participating would all fill in the first couple rows of the arena just behind the holographic barrier, and the first to go would be the upperclassmen. Jaune gave a long sigh of depression, realizing he would have to wait in anxiety until basically last. Further back in the stands, only a small amount of the available seats were taken. Jaune needed to know.

"Hey Pyrrha, if the tournament is so big, why is no one here?"

"Because the first day of fighting is to weed out the weaker contestants. Starting day two people begin to show up, and from there each day more important people come and each fight is given more coverage until the final one, where most everyone in the world is watching."

"Makes sense. What happens to the losers of each fight?"

"They drop out of the bracket. Today, it's all 2v2, each match is between people in the same year, and each duo is made of students from the same school, and all four are chosen based of style and weapon choice. You and me will probably go together against two shield users of another school."

"Why is it set up like that?" Jaune had a clue, but he didn't want to miss out on anything.

"Its 2v2 to speed up the process, otherwise we'd be here for at least ten hours, and no one would watch that. They still record these fights just incase theres a gem that occurs, but usually the first day is to cut the numbers quickly. Same as tomorrow, after that, it's one on one. The last day is a four way brawl between the single most successful team from each school, one for each year."

"But wait! Why are we categorized based off our weapon choice?"

"Just for the first day. It's so that there isn't a overwhelming amount of any one category of fighter. This guaranteed that later fights are diverse and unpredictable."

"All right" as Jaune figured, he understood how TV kept it's audiences interested, so this made sense to him.

-Five hours later-

Watching the fights between upperclassmen was an eye opener to the first years. Seeing team CVFY absolutely wreck grimm in the breach of Vale gave them the idea that all upperclassmen were just short of demi-gods. This was not the case. It seemed like the members of team CVFY were among the better third years, and were considered some of the best. Others were good, but not amazing, and it made sense where the students like Cardin ended up after a couple years. Ironically, all of team CRDL won in the first day.

Ruby and Nora were paired together and had an easy victory against a matching team from Atlas, a boy with a great long axe and a girl with a flamethrower glaive. Nora dispatched the boy with a single hit shouting "SMASH!" , and Ruby kept her distance and quickly found that the girl didn't like being pelted with .95 cal rounds and forfeited. In fact, to Jaune it seemed everyone he knew won fairly easily with the exception of two. First, Yang, who was paired with a next to useless brawler girl and faced off against two fairly competent Atlas knuckle dusters, and second, him, who with the help of Pyrrha faced off twin blond boys with leather gun bucklers and scimitars who coordinated fairly well. To his surprise, the day was already over.

They all left the coliseum together and headed back to Beacon where to Jaune's surprise, sitting in front of the courtyard statue, his grandfather patiently waited, smoking in the dusk.

-End Chapter 10-


	11. Chapter 11: Trial by Combat

The man was half a head taller than Jaune, with short gray hair hidden beneath a brown fedora to match his brown trench coat. His face was soft and wrinkly, but retained it strong features and vigor. Retaining a fairly casual look about him, he kept his hands in his pockets and leaned back when he finally stood up.

Through his cigarette he said "Hello Jaune, I was wondering if I could talk to you for a bit." His voice was small, quiet, strained, raspy, all symptoms of age, but inexplicably it had a richness about it that was soothing to the ears.

Jaune stood in terror. Although he hadn't thought about his family this entire time, there was no doubt in his mind that his grandfather had been sent to retrieve him and the family heirlooms, Crocea Mors. He had stolen the sword and shield along with his armor, and left for Beacon in the night along with the clothes on his back and some lien to live the life of a hero he had dreamt about all throughout his youth. In his junior year of high school, he researched the requirements for getting accepted into Beacon for several months before a man approached him about entering, saying that if they got him in, his payment would be based off of Jaune's salary as a Huntsmen. The man said it was an investment, and that he wouldn't be giving up much by lending some fake transcripts, so Jaune figured it was worth it. By summer time, Jaune ran away from home to live his current life. Jaune now thought that his run was over, but at least he didn't want his friends to see it happen.

"Yeah, sure. Uh, you guys go on ahead, I'll catch up." He didn't take his eyes off his grandfather.

"Who is he?" Nora asked, forgetting her manners.

"Oh, just a family friend..." the man said, nodding to urge the others to leave, although not rudely.

With hesitation, the teenagers went on ahead, Pyrrha lingering the longest, throwing inquisitive looks to Jaune prying for an answer only to get none before giving up and leaving, stewing in concern. Jaune stood his ground, staring down his grandfather whom stepped forward until only five paces separated them.

"So how're ya doing?" the elder asked.

"Better than ever." Jaune fought to keep back the resentment he grew from his family's disappointment in him. He could feel the dam of emotion in him building up, for he didn't want to leave, but he was no match against his family, his decision to leave was doomed from the start.

"Thats good. I must say, I'm impressed Jaune..."

"Yeah?"

The man began to pull the cigarette from his mouth and said "...you managed to shack up with a Schnee, the Nikos, and a Rose" and with that his face lit up and gave a cool chuckle.

"-good job boy, job well done!"

"Grandpa, please..." Jaune although confused, cracked a smile, finding it incredibly hard to hate the man standing in front of him.

"Wait-" Jaune continued, "-how do you know about Ruby?" It made sense for someone to recognize Pyrrha or Weiss, but how he knew Ruby made little sense.

Placing the smoke back into his mouth, he said "You find that in the Grimm slaying business, Huntsmen and Huntresses that are more successful than others become icons even if the regular world has never heard of them. Ruby's uncle is renowned for his scythe wielding skills and both her mothers and her father are all incredible warriors in their own right, making her birth mother's death all the more tragic."

Jaune's stomach sank, the weight of this information he never even considered seemed like something he shouldn't be allowed to know without her direct permission. It felt dirty learning this from his grandfather, someone who seemingly wasn't related to the Rose clan whatsoever.

"Stop" Jaune said, "Don't tell me anymore-"

"-Oh, I'm sorry my boy, I thought you knew." The man's smile faded. "Here, let me see your sword." He held his hand out and waited for Jaune. Jaune gave both pieces to him, feeling like he just gave away a part of his soul and that he would never get it back.

"Ah, I have fond memories of killing with this, oh so many Grimm..." he studied every aspect of the sword and shield, searching for something that apparently wasn't there. "Still not a scratch on it, edge is still repairable, no dents, no bends. Here you go, it's yours." He handed it back to Jaune and placed his hands straight back into his pockets before strolling away.

With great confusion, Jaune said "Wait! What?"

He turned around, "What?"

"What do you mean 'mine?'"

"I mean it's yours now, what do you think I mean?"

"You're not taking me back?"

"Taking you back? Why would we take you away from exactly what we wanted you to do? You seem to be doing just fine as it is!" The man started walking away again.

"So you guys aren't mad?"

"Nope" he shouted over his shoulder, making distance.

"What about me faking my way into Beacon?!" Everything Jaune had thought depended on his grandfather's response, for everything he thought he knew turned out to be wrong thus far.

"Ha! Ozpin was ecstatic when he found out you had an interest in attending Beacon, he had fun writing up your transcripts, the creepy ol' bastard..."

Jaune's head was spinning. 'Ozpin was the one who sought Jaune out? How could that be?''and similar questions about what he thought he knew circled his head, uncertain of everything save one. He ran up to his grandfather and hugged him behind.

"Thank you!" Jaune cried.

"Ah it's nothing boy" he turned around within Jaune's hug and reciprocated back, "we know you'll make us proud."

-Two Days Later-

Jaune was nervous. In the previous day, he and Pyrrha had another win, albeit more challenging than the first, but today he faced off against his opponent alone. Worse yet, while he fought alone he fought under the eyes of everyone he knew and many more, all strangers. Even worse yet, today was the day they fought twice. The fights were only getting harder and longer, so to make the later fights fair and the early days within realistic time constraints, the third day cuts the pool of contestants from around 120 down to about 30. And starting on the third day, he was the eighth and final student in the first year from Beacon

His first opponent was a brunette girl from Mistral named Robin. She wore a canvas green vest riddled with pockets over a black dress t-shirt, paired with olive green cargo shorts and dark brown combat boots. Her weapon of choice was a camo themed sniper rifle that had a blade unfold to line the underside of the rifle turning it into a single edged sword. At first glance, she seemed like a slacker, but when he made first eye contact with her and she made a gesture of slitting his throat, he could tell she was just anti social.

The announcer called out, "All righty! We have here Jaune Arc, a first year at Beacon versus Robin Pine, a first year hailing from MIstral!" Jaune's friends all cheered him on.

They stepped into the enormous arena from opposite sides, and placed themselves at the designated points on the field representing north and south.

The announcer called, "Get Ready!" Jaune's hands hovered over his sheath, her hand rested behind her back.

"GO!" The crowd went silent.

Jaune drew his sword with his right then expanded his sheath into his shield with his left in one quick motion before charging. She drew her sniper instantly and popped off three shots before Jaune made five steps, the first hitting his shield yielding no results, the second bouncing off his sword guard again yielding no results much to Robin's surprise, and the third slamming into his shin. The force knocked Jaune forward to the ground, but he quickly fell into roll and was back on his feet closing the long distance between them. Jaune figured she was using conventional .308 rounds, thinner but more powerful sniper rounds that pack alot of punch for their size, but to Jaune they were bunny's in comparison to the bulls that Ruby had shot him with many times before. She continued firing at his feet, emptying her clips and reloading in her wait for Jaune to reach her, pulling seven round clips from her numerous pockets. Jaune made a concentrated effort to dance over these bullets, but some still managed to hit his feet.

After much rolling, he jumped at the last moment and slammed his sword down in her direction. She blocked with the blade of the rifle, but she had to block with her off hand propping the spine of it and still almost buckled in the process. He knew right then what to do. Jaune head butted her and kicked her feet out from underneath her. She fell on her back and waved her weapon in the air for just a moment before Jaune knocked it right out of her hands, the crowd roaring at the spectacle of her weapon flying and the overall display of domination.

He stepped on her abdomen and lifted his blade to neck. The gesture was universal and clear in meaning, and with it, she shouted

"I yield!"

Jaune looked at the aura health bars on the big screen and laughed. His bar was at half way from the abuse his legs took and hers was has only gone done a tenth of the way. He stepped off of her and the pain in his legs overtook the adrenaline, collapsing him to the ground. Being declared winner, Robin sauntered off the arena in shame, and all of his friends cheered while the rest of the crowd clapped, impressed by the swift results of the fight.

Finding his way back to the stands, his friends shook his hand and congratulated him on his victory, Pyrrha most of all who commented on his excellent strategy. But it was just that which bothered Jaune. Jaune felt a significant guilt thinking that the girl he fought was rather unlucky. Her strengths relied on hitting often and probably being fast, maybe she could even curve her bullets, who knows, but what was for certain was that Jaune had the advantage by being the foil to her style; he could take abuse and neglect most of it, and had alot of strength which just overpowered her in one moment. It was an unfair fight which left a bad taste in his mouth, no matter what Pyrrha or the others said.

The others went after him, most having some difficulty in their fights. To his surprise, Ren actually lost to a dual shotgun axe user, but he was the only casualty. The second round of matches proceeded, each match now a bit more interesting as they were getting to the best of the fighters, and each fighter walked in somewhat hurt from the first match. As it grew closer to Jaune's turn, he grew anxious. His legs stopped hurting as bad as before but they had been bruised and would be a major weakness in his next fight.

Finally, it was his turn.

"Jaune Arc of Vale vs. Jack Vorst of Atlas!"

Jaune froze, it was the one who beat Ren.

-End of Chapter 11-

***Vorst means frost in Dutch (I know, his name is rather blunt in that case...)**


	12. Chapter 12: The Boy in White

The crowd started getting angry. There was a schedule to keep yet Jack and Jaune had been fighting for over five minutes without significant headway. Even Ruby who was impressed with his ability to last against the Atlas warrior still started to tire of waiting for an outcome. Her impatience was however ailed when she observed the striking resemblance to Ironwood this Jack boy had, long white overcoat and trimmed black hair, a blue tie and larger build, basically a younger, cockier version of Ironwood himself. She pondered the possibility of them being related, maybe he knew Penny? Before too much thought, her attention was wrested back to the fight with the cheer of the crowd and Pyrrha screaming "Jaune!"

Jack parried Jaune's leftward down-slash with his right-hand shotgun axe, then stomped on Jaune's exposed bruised right leg, sending him forward into Jack's chest. Jaune let his other leg go limp, falling into a roll past Jack, and Jaune caught a glimpse of the most surprising thing. Jack went to slam the side of his exposed hand into Jaune, but tracked him into his roll and ended up being too slow, instead scrapping his hip. Ice formed on Jack's hip. Jaune laughed. His semblance was ice, and he wasn't immune to it.

The ice wasn't much at all and slid off his hip, the spectators unaware of what had happened. Jaune realized with the heaviest of griefs that even if he knew what this boy's semblance was, he couldn't make a difference now seeing as how he hasn't used it up to this point and still hasn't taken a hit. The knight looked at the status banners, he was standing at about a quarter aura, losing by a large margin. Jack dropped the thick black clips from his weapons, tossed two magazines in the air and swung his weapons to reload, grinning ear to ear. He started a slow skip towards Jaune, his axes hanging propped at his hips, and for the first time in a long time, Jaune felt scared of another human being. He could've sworn that this boy, this demon, intended to kill him, and would revel in the act. All bets were off.

"Oh, no, no, no no no..." Jaune whimpered quietly and pathetically so that only Jack could hear, which wasn't hard with the crowd screaming 'finish him'.

With the dignity all gone from the Knight, the Boy in White already wide smile grew, and he tilted his back to laugh in glee of his downright victory. Jaune's pathetic contorted face turned back into a scowl and the Knight charged forward fast and low, tackling the Demon with his shield raised. The Boy in White went down and had the wind knocked out of him, and in that crucial moment, Jaune sat up and slapped his face with his shield, bashed in his face with his forehead, and sword pummeled and punched him repeatedly in the face. Jack swung back with a dual axe attack, and Jaune was sent sprawling. The Boy in White stood up with his smile still intact, but had in one go lost half his aura according to the status banners, an inkling of blood coming from his nose. Jaune on the other hand, laid in a pool of his own blood.

Pyrrha screamed "JAUNE!" and the crowd went silent.

-End of Chapter 12-


	13. Chapter 13: Laying to Rest

A white ceiling.

A white ceiling with hints of water damage.

And 1, 2, 3, 4, 5... 9 heads.

"Oh" said Jaune.

He quickly gained his wits about him and realized he had just woken up in the hospital. The sky he could see through the window showed it was night, but that didn't mean much in winter where it's almost always dark. Team RWBY, JNPR, Sun and Neptune all circled around his bed, most wearing apprehensive smiles.

Pyrrha was the first to greet him, "Hello there sleepy head."

"Hey..."

"Ok! So we're all on the same page, you were just low enough in aura that they could've call the battle over, but didn't, so when he hit you twice, one hit made through and you got cut in the shoulder, lost alooooot of blood, Yang lost to Sun, Neptune lost to Ruby, some Mercury guy beat Weiss, his friend it seems beat Blake, Pyrrha is still in, and I was disqualified for sending my opponent into the TV crew, you're going to recover to watch tomorrow's four way fights, by the way it's going to be not one on one but four way, and ten minutes ago the nurse gave you appa- appaneph- appanephl- applnefllner... something that was going to wake you up and BOOM! here we are."

No one was at the least surprised with Nora's ability to speak rapidly with no need for breaths. She put her hands on her hips in dignity for her ability.

"That was... quite informative. Thank you" Jaune replied, nodding his head.

"So how do you feel?" Ruby was the first to ask, her hands clenching the bed railing tightly in her upset state, having stressed over Jaune's condition even when fighting in her second match.

Jaune felt it was certain he couldn't be honest with her, he couldn't tell her that in that last moment before he totally blacked out he felt nothing but a pinch, and how now he felt only a dull pain, because as he looked at her, her eye patch stared back at him as a reminder of his failure to protect her. To him, it was his fault she went through that terrible pain, and whatever honest answer he gave would either belittle or insult the pain she had felt.

"Oh, I feel great!" Jaune blushed, answering easily with too much enthusiasm. Ruby appreciated the transparent lie.

Sun read the mood, "Oh look at the time, me and Neptune need to head back now, just wanted to make sure you were okay. By the way, no hard feelings, right Yang?"

"No hard feelings."

"I'll go with you guys, I'd like some fresh air" said Blake who was not too interested in coddling Jaune for his injury.

After they left, Yang started on how awesome her fight was, describing how they left the arena in tatters, how Sun puked after the fact from dodging so much his body couldn't stop shaking, and how the crowd was wild the entire time hooting and hollering, all expressed with excited verbiage and dramatic body acting. Weiss cut her off at some point, mentioning Mercury and her concerns.

"He gave up when he went against Pyrrha, but I don't think it was because he couldn't do it. He's really good."

"What do you mean?" asked Nora.

"What do you mean, 'what do you mean'?"

"Whats your point?" Nora replied innocently.

"What I mean is, he's suspicious. I don't trust him."

Jaune added, "I feel the same way towards that Jack guy, he took too much pleasure in fighting."

Yang shifted in her spot, "Well... I really enjoy fighting, so..." she said uncomfortably.

"No, I mean he enjoys the pain part of it, or at least I think so. Also, so you know, his semblance is ice."

"How do you know?" Ren asked.

"His hand made contact with his hip when he tried to get me, and where his exposed hand made contact generated ice."

"Good job man, you forced him to use his semblance. He never even had to in my fight." Ren claimed, perfectly fine with admitting Jaune's surpassing him at least in this instance.

"Speaking of which, whats the match up for tomorrow?"

"Uhm..." Ruby looked at her scroll, "Me versus Sun versus Jack versus Phlox first, then Pyrrha versus either Mercury or Emerald, they have to decide between themselves, and Auburn second."

"Yeah, Ruby, don't let 'em touch you" Jaune said casually, looking into Ruby's eye.

She stared back. Then everyone burst into laughter.

"Yeah! Sis, if he offers you candy, say no then walk away!" Yang shouted between her laughs.

"And don't get in any white vans with him!" Weiss said.

"Make sure to call the police while you're at it!" Pyrrha added. They stopped laughing only after several minutes of old man pedophile jokes and the nurse warning them that Jaune's rest time was coming up.

"Anyways, ha ha, uhm... yeah no, yeah, keep your distance from him, if he closes that distance, get away."

"Being fast is my specialty" Ruby said with pride, sitting down on his bed by his feet.

"Watch out though, he's probably faster than Yang, and stronger than me."

"Will do."

They talked a bit more before the nurse walked in to give him a shot, telling them that they had to leave. Pyrrha convinced the nurse to let her stay, but everyone else left, Ruby lingering the longest asking if Jaune wanted anything from the store.

"What store?"

"Any store."

"No, I'm fine."

Pyrrha pulled up a chair by his bed side and pulled out a stack of magazines, chatting quietly with Jaune for an hour before the shot kicked in, dragging him closer to unconsciousness. He resisted the exhaustion so he could talk to Pyrrha, but eventually the weight of his eyes grew to be to much, and he succumbed. Just before he was too far gone, she leaned over him and gave him a peck on the cheek, and whispered good night.

She threw her magazines in the air in surprise when Jaune's hands moved, seemingly grasping for consciousness. She took his hand in hers, and his hands went calm, finally accepting rest. Laying her head onto his bedside and closing her eyes, the serenity filling the warm room lulled her into sleep as-well, albeit more willingly.

-End Chapter 13-


	14. Chapter 14: The Poison of Quicksilver

Mercury woke up to the slap of his face by Emerald's cold thin hand.

"You have a job to do, remember?" she said with impatience, almost shouting in his ear.

"I remember... just one more minute..." he rolled over to face away from her and pull his pillow over his head.

He closed his eyes to sleep, but he could still hear plenty, and the ruckus Emerald was making kept him from embracing sweet sleep once more. The door opened from what he could tell, and he heard some was being tossed into the hallway, Emerald muttering something angry to herself. Still holding onto the pillow, Emerald dragged Mercury from his bed into the hallway and shut the door on him. Mercury laid stark naked on the floor grasping his pillow for another minute before the chilly breeze forced him up. He let go of his pillow and stood up, arching his back with satisfying pops tracing his spine. Two girls turned the corner to see him stretching there and froze in their tracks.

"Morning" he said as a yawn found it's way to him.

The two girls turned around and sped off with their heads down, leaving Mercury disappointed at their lack of proper communications skills. Emerald had thrown out his clothes he realized, not any boxers or socks but everything else.

"Can I change in there? It's cold out here..." he cranked his head both ways, more delicious popping followed.

"No, we're changing right now. Oh yeah, here... remember, two grams."

The door squeaked open with just a sliver. Emerald handed him a small vial of clear dust then locked him out for good this time. Mercury went to put it in his pocket when he realized he was still naked. He slipped on his pants, shoes, shirt and vest, and headed off to the cafeteria, letting loose another yawn.

Walking through Beacon, hands in his pocket and slouched over, he saw through the windows that it was still early in the day, probably eight o'clock he thought. When passing by some more identical dorms, Jack Vorst left his and started walking side by side with Mercury.

"Morning" Jack said with vigor.

"Morning..." Mercury said with sleep still in his eyes and voice. A shiver went down his spine, the morning air still chilly.

"What are you doing on this fine day, sir?" Jack asked.

"I'm just going to poison Papa November, maybe catch a nap, then take Emerald's place in the three way match." Mercury yawned again.

"Oh that sounds fun. Yes sir, I'm doing something similar. I'm going to uproot a certain Romeo Romeo." Jack walked with a spring in his step.

"Do you even know what that is?" Mercury asked, disappointed his walking partner was a man and not some pretty girl. More of a boy really he thought to himself, saying man is giving him too much credit.

"Romeo and Juliet, of the world of old, I know. What do you take me for, a little sheep?" fake dismay resounding in his voice.

"Well I will have the great honor and joy of being the Casca to Papa November's Caesar" Mercury knew his old world tales well, but just knowing about some of the tales behind the names people walk around with puts him into a minority of about 0.001%, most don't even realize there was once a different world humans once lived in.

"Et tu, Brute?" Jack spun in place, containing more energy then he knew how to deal with.

"Achilles heel is gonna get pierced..." Mercury raised an eyebrow.

"Not until after he first cross dresses." Jack was into it now.

"And Joan is going to weep."

"Not until after she first cross dresses."

"You're going to be watching right? Make it snow will ya. Bring some reindeer."

"But I'll be busy, after all, little red riding hood's going to be gobbled up by the wolf."

"You know, I never thought of it like that! You're right!"

"Don't worry, you're still marvelouuuuss..." Jack drawled his vowels, then danced off down another hallway to where ever.

"Stay classy Frost." Mercury felt awake now.

He walked into the cafeteria and looked around, not spotting his target. There were a decent amount of early birds eating breakfast, but none of them mattered to him a the moment. He looked at the clock on the far wall.

"8:27, another thirteen minutes..." he rubbed his face, giving one last yawn.

He stood by the entrance by the window, keeping an eye out for his objective. To pass the time, he took out the small vial in his pocket and dumped out some of the clear dust into his pocket, leaving only about two grams left in the vial. He winked at every pretty girl that walked through the entrance door, going out of his mind in his waiting game.

He checked the clock again. It read 9:12.

"Son a bitch" he whispered to himself.

Mercury began to panic. 'What if she didn't show up? What if he messed up his mission? What if Cinder was going to kill him?' The last thought came as a joke to him, but then it's reality struck hard, sweat forming on Mercury's forehead. He started to pace back and forth ready to leave and find Emerald, but all worries dissipated when his target walked through the door.

"O' hey Pyrrha! Ready for today's fight?!" he glued himself to her Jaune-less side. Rage towards Jaune boiled in his blood, Mercury seeing that Jaune was in a sling with Pyrrha walking him to the cafeteria, meaning it was his fault she was off schedule for breakfast.

"So it's you whose fighting?"

"Yep, Emerald wasn't to interested in fighting to begin with, she's a bit of a stickler sometimes. But me, man, after seeing you fight yesterday, I just felt I had to redeem myself and try my best!" He talked all giddy like and shook his hands in innocent excitement. He was glad Emerald and Cinder weren't here to see him act like this.

"Well what you did was impressive, you made it to the final eight of the first years. I'm sure you won't disappoint." She made her way to the food stand, picking up two trays; one for her, one for Jaune. Mercury needed to make time.

"Oh shucks, you really think so?" Mercury rubbed the back of his head in faux bashfulness. Jaune and Pyrrha looked at each other with dubious looks, confused with his less than totally confident attitude they have seen him with thus far. Pyrrha placed soup on both trays. 'Not good enough' thought Mercury, starting a solid line of eye contact with Pyrrha.

"No doubt" Jaune said, giving neither sarcasm nor sincerity in his tone. Pyrrha poured two cups of orange juice.

"Well I don't want to grow an ego or anything, so I gotta keep myself in check, ya know?" His voice deepened and become confident as he spoke, the tone betraying his words and his stare betraying his supposed nervousness. Pyrrha put down the cups of Juice on the trays. Her fingers itched, and she rested her hand on her hip, right next to her sword.

"I'm sure thats not a problem, you seem to keep it under wraps just fine." Her now monotone voice betrayed her words. She grabbed two apples with her off hand and laid them on the trays, not moving her main hand from her hip.

"You'd be surprised- Ohmydust is that Spruce Willis?!" Mercury's straight face broke into that of a small child's as he pointed with excitement towards the entrance in the opposite direction from where the other two were looking. They turned their heads in reaction, and in a moment with his other hand, Mercury dumped the vial into Pyrrha's cup in one fluid motion. The crystal dust dissolved into the orange juice instantly, and not a person saw.

"I don't think so..." Jaune said turning his head back. Mercury froze.

"I don't see him, but I'm sure he'll be at the tournament actually" Pyrrha added coldly.

"Well darn, I thought maybe I could ask for an autograph, but I guess I'll have to settle with just seeing him later then. Well, thanks for the encouragement, I'll see ya later." He turned slowly and seductively, that is if he was a woman, and made way waving behind him as he went.

"Okay..." Pyrrha and Jaune said in unison.

They found a table to sit down at, and began to eat, still perturbed by Mercury's odd behavior.

-End Chapter 14-


	15. Chapter 15: The Red Crescent Moon

**Hey ladies and gentlemen, I just want all of you guys to know that I really enjoy having you read my work, this being my first FanFic and all, I didn't expect it to be received as well as it is, and I have you guys to thank. So yeah, I appreciate any and all reviews, follow or favorite only if you want, and to those who celebrate, Happy Thanksgiving, and to those who don't, have a good day. Enjoy;**

Ruby's heart was racing, palms sweaty, throat dry, nose tingling. Stepping into the light of the arena to the sound of cheers and chants one hundred thousand strong and the careful watch of TV broadcasters was a consequence of the tournament that Ruby never considered. She always wanted her fighting to do the talking for her and for others to respect her for her ability, but in front of this many people drowned her in the pressure of believed expectations. She took her spot at the south point on the dirt floor of the arena, surprised when she heard her name called out by the announcers for her arrival, even though she knew she shouldn't be. Ruby scanned the front row crowds for Jaune and Yang but to no avail, as there were just too many people.

Amidst the deafening noise, Ruby heard her name in a familiar voice. It was behind her.

"STOP LOOKING AROUND RUBY! FOCUS ON YOUR OPPONENTS!" Jaune shouted with all his might.

She hadn't noticed them when she left her tunnel, but there they were, her team and Jaune's, but no Pyrrha, Ruby didn't give it much thought. Jaune's words resounded in her head again and this time Ruby took note, observing her contesters standing at their respective points. At the north point, Jack Vorst stood, hands behind his back, grinning. At the east point, Sun stood, three sectioned-shotgun-staff in one hand and waving at the crowd with the other. The younger girls couldn't resist his abs apparently and went crazy when he made eye contact with them. And just entering her spot at the west point was Phlox Sky, a girl from Vacuo who dressed in a purple desert dancer outfit with much of her mid drift showing but wore long thin sleeves over her arms. She carried a thin black scimitar that doubled as a sub machine gun with which she seems to hit very hard with, but Ruby couldn't figure out how from watching her previous fights.

"With our Huntsmen and Huntresses assembled, let the fight begin!" the announcer called out. The crowd started screaming even louder.

They didn't move. Jack was staring down Ruby, who was glancing between Phlox and Jack, Phlox was glancing between Ruby and Sun, and Sun was glancing between Phlox and Jack. Ruby's thoughts were scattered. Her first concern being when to make her first move, and her second concern being when to make her first move. She didn't know how to deal with a free for all like this and it seemed like neither did Phlox or Sun, and trying to avoid Jack would mean fighting either Phlox or Sun, and she wouldn't want to fight Sun, so she would fight Phlox, but that would mean Sun would fight Jack. She needed to make a decision, but that was her second problem, if they kept standing there like that, the crowd would start to get angry, and at least thirty seconds has already past. The crowd was getting to her head she realized, and she needed to block it out. She closed her eyes to focus her mind, but in her attempt to block out the crowd, she forgot about her opponents.

Jack was in her face and Sun was fighting Phlox. Giving a small shriek she back flipped into a combat ready stance avoiding Jack's first barrage of attacks. Ruby stabbed the ground and fired off three shots from fifteen feet away, but quickly found out what a bad idea it was when Jack bobbed and weaved past the tip of her barrel and shot her in the face point blank with a shotgun blast. She flew back several meters with her scythe still in hand, but her hearing was gone, replaced with a high pitched ring. Her neck hurt like mad and so did her face, and a glance to the aura banners showed her going from full aura to half, but the relative silence gave her an unexpected solace. She could concentrate.

Standing right back up, all thoughts left her head, her knees bent and her back hunched, bearing her teeth; a growl escaped her throat. Jack returned the sentiment with a low laugh and wide smile. She disappeared from his sight moving by semblance, and appeared directly behind him with a point blank sniper round as a thank you gift. He stumbled forward turning around, and she flew back, her feet keeping off the ground to fully utilize her recoil, and she appeared right behind him again and repeated her assault, firing, bouncing back, dashing behind, firing, rinse and repeat. Ruby was convinced she had it in the bag when inevitably, her clip ran out, and Jack was prepared. When the scythe clicked with the sound of an empty magazine, Ruby's feet touched the ground in front of Jack with no recoil to pull her back, and he used the opportunity to swing an axe catching her hood and lifting her up in the air, over his head, and into the ground. She bounced and dashed to give herself distance from him.

She could believe it, his aura banner read that he was still at half aura even after being pummeled with a dozen ultra high caliber rounds. In her confusion, she barely dodged Phlox's swing at her; Phlox swiftly returned with a back swing. This time she blocked but got sent flying back to Jack, the weight behind Phlox's attack just not what Ruby expected. Phlox immediately went back to focusing on Sun, Sun avoiding directly blocking any attack, parrying at the most but adopting a similar tactic to what he used to beat Yang. He kept break dancing to avoid hits and whittled down his opponent's aura with quick attacks.

In flight she spun around to face Jack head on, lifting Crescent Rose's spear head end to make a straight jab. Using both his shotgun axes, he redirected the blow to miss him and fall under between his legs, but Ruby stepped off the ground with her semblance to maintain inertia, and landed a lightning fast two legged kick to his chest. He stumbled back but only just. Ruby realized the problem she was having, and that problem was that he was wearing armor under his white long coat and blue tie.

In his moment of recuperation she reloaded with another clip, unsure of what to do. Jack didn't wait however for her to come up with a plan and charged her head on, launching his counter offensive barrage of shotgun blast and axe swings. Ruby impressed even herself with her ability to follow his movements and act accordingly, regardless of her single eye and temporary deafness. He would start a swing with his whole body, starting from down low and twist upwards with all his might and speed, using both axes as one bludgeon, then spin back around like a ballerina and do the same move with one axe but let the other lag behind for just a moment then fire a round, then make movements to swing with one axe only to use the other in a non-intuitive counter momentum swing, tweaking his arcs to randomize what attack he would start with after every swing, throwing in an occasional shotgun round and a kick. The crowd went wild watching Ruby turn into what appeared to be a red sphere, every swing Jack threw Ruby redirected to falling just short of her and used the force to keep her scythe in motion spinning around her body in a flurry, throwing in the occasional sniper round to pick back the necessary speed to keep her parry parade going. Ruby fell deep into a trance of focused desperation.

On the surface she seemed calm and composed, but inside she was panicking, Jack being an extremely skilled opponent with strength on his side and is the one on the offensive. She kept up her defense as long as she could, but eventually Jack broke through. He locked the scythe in the inside of his axes, stopping Ruby completely, and pushed forward letting go of one of his weapons. With his free left hand he grabbed her arm and yanked, pulling her around, ice forming on her arm. She lost any sense of desperation and replaced it with blood boiling rage. Ruby bit his wrist with all her might, getting him to release but still hurt her teeth on what seemed to be the edge of his armor, which started just above the wrist.

He went for a roll to retrieve his dropped weapon, but Ruby caught his neck from behind with the blade of her scythe, and proceeded to fire several rounds propelling her scythe with great force, spinning him around her once before arching over her head and slamming him into the ground, all with her blade on his neck. She jumped up with all her leg strength and semblance, firing directly below her to both hit him and propel her higher, dropped her clip and loaded her single magazine of Gravity Black Cross dust rounds into her scythe all the while reaching the apex of her launch. She discovered why Phlox's last name was Sky when in the middle of her plans, a hundred feet in the air, Phlox charged at her. Ruby pieced together from her movement what Phlox's semblance was; weight manipulation. Sky made herself weigh next to nothing for only the duration of her 'sky dance' and used the weight of her sword to throw her around. This explained her heavy attacks, where on the ground she swings her naturally light sword, gaining as much speed as possible, then makes it weigh a few hundred pounds right before impact to generate tremendous force, breaking several laws of physics.

It didn't do her much good however when Ruby shot her with a GBC round, effectively turning her into a small meteorite, and sending Ruby out of the colosseum altogether, being exposed to the freezing cold temperature outside and at a higher altitude to boot. Ruby remembered what she was doing in her few seconds of deceleration before falling, and looked down far below to see the yellow head that was Sun fighting the black head that was Jack. Sun got knocked far away, giving Ruby the room necessary for her move.

All that was in Ruby's mind in that moment of looking down and seeing Jack in the middle of the arena was that he was waiting at the bottom for her, and was ready to kill her, ready to hurt her. Images of her right eye's last memories staring at Roman flashed in her mind, restocking her entire mental capacity with fury. There was no remorse nor mercy nor control. This was a fight to the death.

She aimed straight at the sky, and in the last second before firing, Jack's head turned up to look at her. 'Good' she thought, 'look at me... meet your reaper...'

She fired twice. The muzzle flare was black.

The wind stung her eye, everything was a blur, everything was moving too fast and the tears didn't help.

She still couldn't hear, but she could feel the wind trying the peel the skin off her face and rip the clothes from her body.

Jack was readying his axes to block. Blood lust was all that was on his mind. They finally share something in common.

She shaped her body so her front faced straight down, and her arms and lefts pointed up and the tip of Crescent Rose pointed up as-well but this time by her head.

She fired twice. The muzzle flare was black.

She flew towards the ground even faster, but now Ruby was spinning at a blinding speed, and extended her reach at the last moment before contact with Jack.

Jack hammered the tip of the blade at the last second off to his side, his mind focused on the physical, but his judgment gone.

The scythe twisted 180º in her hand. Instead of the point of the scythe bearing down on Jack's head, the backside of the scythe struck down on his shoulder.

All the crowd could see was four black flashes, then an after image in the shape of a Red Crescent Moon, then the arena was blinded in dust.

Ruby opened her eye. She was on her back, staring at the sky. She stood up. Surrounding all around her was regular dirt dust cutting all visibility after ten feet. Her face was warm. Her hands, elbows, back, and fore arms hurt. Her ears rung for a different reason now.

She collected her thoughts and realized her predicament. She stood over Jack, who wasn't wearing a white suit anymore but a red one, and he didn't have his right arm, or shoulder for that matter. Blood mixed in with the dirt, and splattered all over Ruby's face, explaining the warmth, but to her surprise for various reasons, Jack was still breathing as he lay there on his back, bones jutting out of his missing section, his body convulsing spastically and painfully, his breathing fast and irregular, blood coming from his mouth.

Ruby didn't make out of the finisher unscathed either. She had fractured her forearms, probably broke a bone or two or five in her hands and wrecked her elbow and back from the force. She tried walking when she found moving normally without her hearing was really difficult and fell. She felt sick. She turned away from the mess she made, but the notion that she had just attempted to kill a boy and for the most part was successful dawned on her, confused with the mixed feelings of relief and anxiety, pride and guilt, giddiness and remorse. Looking one last time at the mangled pile of boy that once was Jack Vorst, she flashed away.

The dust settled in the arena, and screams of terror and surprise echoed for miles from the colosseum. The camera crews zoomed in to get the best view of Jack's mutilated body, the blood spatter surrounding him, and the overall state of the arena. The aura banners read that Jack had only a sliver of aura keeping him alive, Phlox was out cold but fine, and Sun was by definition out, his aura in the red, but still conscious and unharmed. Ruby wasn't to be seen, but she still had the highest aura, and by definition, won.

Team RWBY and JNPR jumped out of the stands and into the arena and dispersed, going into the tunnels to see if they could find Ruby.

Ruby went out through her south tunnel straight outside, from there she limped, looking through store windows for somewhere to hide just to calm down, quickly finding a clothing store closed for the tournament. To her surprise, the door was left unlocked for some arcane reason, but even if it wasn't she figured she could've gotten through one of the windows. Inside it was warm and quiet, although the quiet portion was deceiving as her hearing still hadn't returned, being shot in the face point blank with a loud shotgun blast only ten minutes prior and having crashed into the earth at a ungodly speed only four minutes ago keeping her in the dark sound wise.

She searched the back of the store for a bathroom to wash her face and hands of Jack's blood, quickly finding it. However, seeing into the mirror and seeing what she truly looked like scared her. Dark blood, red like roses was smeared all across her face and in her hair and clothes, giving her the appearance of a rabid dog after eating some hapless prey. She started to cry. The tears streamed down her face mixing in with the blood. She slammed her hands on the sides of the sink only to remember the pain in most of her body, falling to her knees clenching her hands in pain, crying both physically and mentally, broken.

But what happened next she never would have expected.

She felt a hug from behind. She was hugged from behind. She could hear a muffled buzzing sound that she quickly realized was someone talking, but about what she couldn't tell. She stopped crying. Their breath on her shoulder was warm, especially when compared to the chilly air of the un-heated clothes shop. Their hands gently grasped her upper arms and lifted her to her feet, and they lead her out of the bathroom and into the lounge area and sat her on a couch. It was Jaune. His lips moved, obviously trying to say something, but Ruby couldn't make it out. He walked to the bathrooms and came back, this time with a small bucket of warm water and a rag. He kneeled in front of her and started dabbing the rag in the water and wiped her face, starting the snot that began to come from her nose, then moved onto the tears, then got the mess of blood, dipping the rag to keep it wet and warm.

She started crying again.

"What have I done? I killed him!" Ruby thought she said, putting her hands to her head in terror.

Jaune shook his head 'no', he might have said no as well, but she couldn't tell. He placed a hand on her shoulder and gently rocked her back and forth while saying something, head tilted and eyes soft, albeit hard to see in the dim lighting of the closed store. He said something, but she could've swore he said 'It's alright' somewhere in his monologue.

Jaune repeated that with a soft nudge on the shoulder, 'It's alright', and smiled.

He broke eye contact to finish cleaning her face, but looked back at her, his wiping of her lips slow in pace and only getting slower, the stare between them feeling longer and longer. Ruby's worries all left with Jaune's treatment. He forced himself to finish and placed the rag back into the bucket filled with red water. Jaune pulled his arm out of his sling again and searched through his satchel, soon pulling out a green cream dust mix vial with a red cross on it and scooped some out onto his hands. He lifted Ruby's hands and rubbed them down with the green cream, Ruby wincing in pain at first, but with time finding that the pain subsided and in fact felt much better. Jaune finished up with her hands, gently putting them down with tender care, and said what Ruby interpreted as 'where else does it hurt?'

She motioned her fore arms, which she winced at in pain just lifting up, not realizing until now just how much pain she was in. There too Jaune massaged, the pain disappearing, and with her focus on her pain lessened, she focused more on Jaune's face, noticing how caring and considerate he seemed and in fact looked, a strong face with heart and sensitivity she thought.

He gestured whether that was it or not, having finished her forearms. Ruby blushed. Ruby never would have done this but, with Jaune, she felt safe, she felt it was okay if it was with him. She stood up, turned around, and shifted her belt to untie the knot at the base of her corset.

Time stood still in the clothes shop.

Jaune couldn't help but to watch from behind her as she meticulously undid her corset, revealing the zipper underneath which pulled up. Ruby did it slowly, giddy inside at the thought of Jaune watching all of this in anxious anticipation. The zipper came undone at the top, and Ruby slid the cloak and corset off in one slow movement, leaving her skirt and a black bra against smooth pale white skin. She shifted so that she sat on the couch facing the back of the store, with Jaune getting to stand up from his kneel and sitting behind her, grabbing more lotion to spread. He looked outside the windows while doing this, worried about passerby's; there were none on today.

He turned back to Ruby to see she had taken off her bra as well and waited for his treatment.

With hesitation, he applied the medical dust to her back sending a shiver down her spine, the gel being cool and the touch being sensual. He spread the gel liberally along her spine and along each rib, much to her enjoyment, then made sure to get her elbows from behind once she gestured for them too. Once he finished after much care not to see anything he shouldn't have, he screwed the lid back on the vial and put it back into his satchel. But Ruby wasn't done yet.

Ruby's mind was a swirl of peace and passion, and would not let this moment end. As Jaune began to get up, she turned around, grabbing Jaune's shoulder. He looked away and closed his eyes which pleased Ruby, as it meant that Jaune is an honest to dust good boy, and will remain so without direct intervention. She would be the intervention.

She pushed him down so that he was laying on the couch, and she crawled on top of him, meeting him face to face. He opened his eyes and kept them to her eye. He traced his free left hand down the side of her face, then doubled back with only the tips of his fingers to her black eyepatch. She giggled to the tickle of his touch, but stopped when he reached her missing eye and his eyes started to well up. Ruby could see the pain her eye caused Jaune, how guilty he must feel for something she could never blame him for, and in turn felt the guilt too. She needed to show her appreciation for everything Jaune has done for her, for being such a good friend of hers, for all the love he's given her, Ruby wanted to show her love for Jaune.

She wiped the tears forming in his eyes. She reciprocated the stroking of her face onto his. She leaned in to lock with his eyes.

She kissed Jaune on the lips, not leaving for what felt like forever and no time at all, and leaned out to gaze upon him with a smile.

He stared back for but a moment, conflicting feelings apparent upon his face. He grabbed Ruby by the cheeks and sat up, sitting her upright with him and pulled her in and kissed her on the forehead. He stood up and walked over to the door and grabbed Crescent Rose, bringing back over.

Ruby had actually forgotten about her other half, her baby. Jaune brought it all the way from the Colosseum just for her, even if it wasn't that far he still took a gamble by probably following nothing but intuition and... 'oh, snow trails'. Something was wrong, and they both knew it. Ruby quickly got dressed, both of their faces glowing red, both clearing their throats excessively.

"It's bent..." Ruby said when she finished, also realizing she had some of her hearing back finally.

"It's bent." Jaune confirmed. Ruby had bent Crescent Rose with a single attack.

-End of Chapter 15-


	16. Chapter 16: Change of Plans

Pyrrha was sad. Pyrrha was glad, but still disappointed. Pyrrha was actually mostly frustrated. In her frustrations, she leaned her foot harder into Mercury's crotch, Mercury curling farther into a ball. The crowd cheered in glee at the humiliation the gray haired boy was suffering on live TV, Pyrrha totally dominating him and stripping all dignity from him. Pyrrha justified his treatment by the fact that he was the one who had kicked her in the gut causing her to puke all over him, which ironically was embarrassing but it got whatever was causing the Champion to be feverish out of her system.

Ruby had disappeared from the Colosseum, her friends searching around town for her unsuccessfully while the arena staff cleaned the fighting grounds and readied the next contestants. Everyone except Ruby and Jaune returned, and the next fight commenced, Pyrrha representing Vale, Mercury representing Mistral, and Mars hailing from Vacuo. The beginning of the fight was incredibly challenging for Pyrrha as she had worked up a temperature, sweated profusely, couldn't see straight, and her semblance didn't seem to have any effect on the other two's weapons. Mercury's gut blow solved her problems, and now Mars was heading for the exit tunnel with Pyrrha, and Mercury still is reeling from his finishing blow; a crotch shot with Pyrrha's shield followed by a sword pummel in the throat.

"I hope one day I can fight you when your not sick for half the fight." A defeated Auburn Mars said to Pyrrha, his deep voice reflecting his sincerity and practiced etiquette. Pyrrha was still too distracted and distraught to care for what Mars had to say.

"That would be enjoyable" she said with forced enthusiasm.

All she wanted was for Jaune to see her fight, but he wasn't there to see it, thanks to Ruby. Pyrrha hated herself for being mad at Ruby, knowing full well that what happened wasn't Ruby's fault... not entirely. But it couldn't be denied that Jaune wasn't there because Ruby had to run away. Pyrrha's fingers clenched her sword fiercely, the blister on her palm bursting and letting the fluid run down the handle through her gloves.

"Well, I'll see you next year" She said, turning away to meet her friends before the gigantic bearded boy could say goodbye.

"That was... interesting..." greeted Yang. Her friends had gotten down from the stands to meet her in the tunnel ways leading to the battle ground. They stood distanced from Pyrrha, her usual small smile replaced with a scowl and blood running down her face.

She didn't want to talk about her fight what so ever. "Wheres Jaune and Ruby?" Pyrrha took a deep breath before saying Ruby's name, keeping her emotions in check as to avoid another fight.

"We got a message from Jaune, he found Ruby. Ruby is talking to Ironwood right now and Jaune is at Beacon running an errand" answered Ren.

"Errand?" Pyrrha's eye twitched. The blood pooling in her eyebrow spilled out and flooded her eye, blocking her vision, causing Pyrrha to rub her eye furiously with her dominant hand, her sword hand, and getting blood in her blister and pus all over her face, and her eye became irritated.

"I'm going to my room..." she said, walking away. Little did she consider that Ruby too was having a hard time.

"Why did you do it?" Ironwood asked Ruby.

They were inside Ironwood's office at the top of the military command facility across the water from Beacon. Ruby sat in front of Ironwood's desk, but he was up and pacing, obviously trying to keep from loosing his cool.

"The point of the Tournaments is to have a good time competing and keeping Huntsmen and Huntresses in training on their toes, to keep peace by venting a little, not to piss off the other kingdoms by killing their students!"

Ruby kept her head down, ashamed of her loss of control. Ironwood sat down and rubbed the bridge of his nose, thinking of what next to say, how to say it.

"There is no easy way of saying this Ms. Rose... I respect you and your actions prior this year, but- and I understand somewhat how you must of felt facing against Mr. Vorst too, but... he's my nephew." Ironwood laid his head down on the desk for a moment. Ruby's eye widened in shock, only to look away again but in much deeper guilt and shame. James stood up and stepped over to his window, looking out towards Beacon.

"He's still alive fortunately. But he's going to have get a cybernetic arm, just like me-" he whispered with sorrow, rubbing his larger arm in what appeared to be pain. Ruby stayed quiet.

"Not even his shoulder is left though. He might never actually recover depending on how well they can make a shoulder. Usually a wound like that is lethal, but as you know some people's aura holds out until there is nothing left, sometimes keeping the person alive even if they're beyond ruined." He sat down again.

"I want your fight tomorrow with Pyrrha Nikos to be clean, understand?" Ruby looked at him in confusion.

"I just got wind that she is the victor of her fight. Tomorrow you two will fight, but your fight has no bearing on the scoreboard for the schools as it will be Vale vs. Vale. It's just for show." Ironwood leaned back in his chair, taking a swig from his flask.

"I'm not going to get punished?" Ruby asked in disbelief.

"Normally, maybe you be. But... I am fully aware of my nephew's history and record, as well as yours. I regret to admit it though, but Jack has a history of provoking fights and taking them too far, never anything too serious but worrisome behavior none of the less. I can understand that maybe he did something and you simply were doing what was in your power to save yourself, even if..." Ironwood thought about what he was saying, giving a long pause realizing that the whole situation looked bad in her favor.

"You were scared, and Jack is still alive. Thats what matters." At that moment, Ozpin entered the room from the elevator, claiming that he needed to talk to Ironwood.

Ruby thanked James and passed by Ozpin who didn't even acknowledge her presence. She sauntered into the open elevator and pressed the ground floor button, closing the doors. She went to press the confirmation button at the bottom of the control panel when she saw a sticky note covering it. She lifted it and brought it close to her face, reading it.

'Good work : ) keep your guard up!'

Other than total dismay at the fact that who she assumed was Ozpin drew a smily face, Ruby felt a different kind of fear this time. What did Ozpin mean by 'keep your guard up', what did he know that she didn't? Or rather, what did he know that no one else knew? What did she have to look out for? Was that mysterious dust clothed woman making a return? Ruby felt unsafe alone and unarmed in the small space of the elevator, unable to fight back if someone were to attack her. She wanted her scythe and friends back. She feared that when she got back to Beacon, she wouldn't be able to fix her Crescent Rose, it's barrel being bent just before the scythe head rendering it useless and incredibly hard to repair. Little did she consider that Jaune and Crouch were teaming up to fix it at that moment.

Crouch whistled, "She put alot of thought into this, didn't she?" He held the scythe underneath the workbench lamp, just in front of the live feed from the colosseum.

"Probably" replied Jaune. "Think we can fix it?"

"Look at this," he pointed at the bended section of the barrel, the black flaking off to reveal silver metal, one side ripped open to further reveal snapped metal underneath it.

"She used a popular lighter titanium steel alloy and heat forged it as the inner wall, allowing her to fire with a none flexing barrel, thats what shattered though, as once it gives it breaks. Fused onto the inner wall is military grade aluminum, it's capable of bending a little, but mostly can take abuse and distribute it evenly while being light, thats where it ripped, couldn't bend more than that. And this black coating is not paint, it's carbon nano tubing, a thin layer that weighs nothing and is incredibly rigid and strong, also completely oxygen proof." Crouch admired the work that Ruby had put into her weapon, becoming determined to return it to it's original state.

It finally made sense to Jaune. "Oh! I get it! She made it really light and stiff so that she can use the recoil to fight like she does!"

"How does she fight?" Crouch asked.

"It's actually adorable, she shoots and she just goes flying like a bouncy ball" said Coco. She had been there the whole time repairing her machine gun, her fight being the first of the day. She sat on the workbench filing away at the receiver, still unsatisfied with the chink that occurred every time the slide back action caught on itself.

"Oh yeah, the less mass a gun has when it fires, the more recoil there is, and this thing is big but only weighs 25 lbs. when it should weigh upwards of 50. Yeah, that'll do the trick. We're going to have to cut away the aluminum and reforge the inner wall, fuse the aluminum back on, then arc weld a layer of carbon over it. We also have to find a perfect rifling fit to go over the fixed spot, and hammer forge the middle wall round before we finish it up." He looked to Jaune to make sure they were on the same page.

"Oh keep talking dirty to me..." Coco teased, licking her lips and tilting her glasses down to gaze at Jaune. Making boys uncomfortable was a hobby of Cocos. Crouch chuckled, remembering all the accidents that happened when Coco would do something provocative and some boy would not pay attention to what he was doing, then ending up in the infirmary. Ozpin allowed this to continue as a trial someone must overcome, Crouch allowed it because he thought it was hysterical.

"Shouldn't we bend it right first?" Jaune asked, not noticing Coco's erotic gesture much to her chagrin.

"Yeah, go ahead and start up the megaton press; this is going to fun." Crouch will get grouchy if someone un-responsible messes up their weapon, but he saw the life feed of Ruby's stunt and felt nothing but respect, both in that she was capable of something as dangerous as what she did and that her weapon held up for the most part. Crouch in that moment decided that just like Coco's weapon, he would gladly work on Ruby's, both being exemplary artifacts.

Somewhere else in Beacon, Mercury was less than enthusiastic about his predicament. He had been pulled into an empty classroom by Cinder and Emerald, both less than pleased with the turnout of the tournament.

"You were so close but you had to blow it!" Emerald screeched at him, arms waving in frustration. Cinder stood still and cold, her gaze more painful than any holler.

"You saw it yourself! I got her in the frontal lobe with a full contact hit while she still had the poison in her! It's not my fault she didn't die! It's not my fault that giant named Mars seemed so intent on protecting her!" he shouted right back, pacing back and forth, his finger pointing to him in defense.

"What matters isn't whose fault it is that you failed" Cinder interjected, venom in her words, "We can't proceed with our plan if the VIPs are not dealt with. I have a plan, but it'll have to wait until after St. David's Day."

"What about Jack?" Emerald asked with concern.

"We'll just have to find a different use for him."

-End of Chapter 16-


	17. Chapter 17: Considerate Thoughts

Pyrrha stumbled into her room, relieved to finally be home. She kicked off her shoes and threw her cloak from Jaune onto her bed, the sweat dried and odorous inside the fabric. Walking softly atop the carpet to the bathroom, she turned on the faucet in the sink and waited for the hot water to start coming out. Once it was warm enough, she splashed it onto her face, wiping all of the blood, sweat, and dirt off and into the drain. Feeling her face was clean enough she looked into the mirror, and to not her surprise, her nose was broken and needed to be reset. She did so.

The pop echoed in the bathroom, the dull stinging turned into a sharp stab of pain, her breathing ragged, Pyrrha keeled over the sink in a daze. After a minute, she could straight again, and looked once again in the mirror. Lifting the tuft of hair from her forehead to see where she had bled from, she saw that her head dress had taken the brunt of Mercury's kick, turning a possibly lethal shot into a skin breaking smack, the cut hiding underneath her armor. The head dress had however shattered from the top down to almost the bottom, rendering it useless for any further defense, and was only keeping together by an inch of thin metal at the bottom.

She took off the head piece and washed the dried blood off of it, tears welling up in her eyes. This piece had been her mother's head piece, her mother who had died soon after she was born, this head dress which her father had gifted to Pyrrha on her first birthday after enrolling into a combat academy, this head dress which she has fought with almost her entire life, Mercury broke it. The tears built up, but she wiped them away, refusing to cry. Pyrrha was always taught to be a stoic as a child, her father endorsing the behavior like a philosophy.

"Pyrrha, if you can control yourself under any circumstance, dealing with others will be the easy part, and others, others will not be able to control you..." he'd say whenever she cried.

She clenched her fist as if to hold tight onto the reigns of her emotions, which worked, but only because it reminded her that her hands needed treatment too, and pain was always the best distraction. She pulled off her gloves, feeling stupid she didn't already even after cleaning her face, and washed them out first. Moving onto her hands, she washed with soap this time, hoping to clean out the popped blisters. The sink had little droplets of red littered all about it much to Pyrrha's dismay, frustrated as she is, Pyrrha took time out of treating herself to clean up the sink so the others didn't have to see, the blood and band aids she was pulling out evidence of mortality which she unconsciously hid.

She stripped down, tossing her clothes out the door to her foot of her bed, but didn't toss her head dress. That she hung on the bed post just outside the bathroom door. She got into the shower, turned on the water, let her hair fall from it's tie, and rested her head against the shower wall and let the hot water beat against her. Her head was pounding, no doubt from a concussion, and the heat while nice against the skin made her dizzy. She washed her hair and scrubbed her body quickly, and the dizziness was replaced with exhaustion. Soon after, she feinted, slowly crumpling into a fetal position before she passed out.

Pyrrha was shivering when she woke up. Nora had just turned off the water which had ran cold long before.

"Wow! Your skin is so cold, lets get you outta here." Nora commented, lifting the naked Pyrrha out of the shower and wrapping her tightly with a towel.

"Wha, what, time?" Pyrrha mumbled confusedly. Her shivers were quickly dispelled by Nora's rubbing.

"Six. P.m. in case you didn't know. We arrived an hour ago, and it just occurred to us that an hour long shower might no be on purpose on your part, so I decided to check on you!" she said with more excitement as she went on.

"Is Jaune here?" She didn't know why she asked, but she wanted to know anyways.

"Nope." Nora opened the bathroom door just enough to tell Ren to leave, and told him to take something with him. Pyrrha could hear the dorm room door open and close, signifying his leave. Nora started to dry Pyrrha's hair, running the towel back and forth, side to side. She went on, "Ya know, your hair is really pretty when it's down like this!" She whispered, "I bet Jaune would really like to see it like this once in a while..."

"And?" Pyrrha said slowly, rubbing the water from her eyes. Pyrrha knew Nora knew she liked Jaune, maybe even loved him, Pyrrha not even sure herself, but she still keeps to herself about it, but won't deny any implications either.

"Well it's like a step down from Yang's hair except red, and from what I can tell, Jaune has a thing for red things..."

"My hair is always red" she answered flatly.

"Yeah, but it would catch anyone's eyes if they saw it in a different style, particularly a wild beautiful one..." Nora patted Pyrrha's head with a smile. "Come on, lets get you dressed."

She returned the smile, "Thank you Nora." She felt a bit better, having had a nap and some care.

"Anything anytime."

Nora got Pyrrha her white pajamas and Ren returned with a thick meat sandwich which Pyrrha quickly scarfed down. Pyrrha was thankful that during the tournament there were no classes or homework or anything resembling assignments, otherwise she wouldn't be able to relax after a tough fight like she was now, simply sitting on her bed with little concern beyond the taste of the sandwich she just finished, content with handiwork. Ren insisted that she started sleeping immediately so she would be ready for tomorrow, to which Pyrrha was happy to oblige with just one contention.

"Is there something off about this room?" she asked.

"What do you mean?" Ren inquired.

"I feel like something is missing..." she yawned, feeling strangely tired, her eye lids heavy.

"Nothing is missing" Ren replied with a slow soothing voice.

"I guess you're right..." Pyrrha laid down, her thoughts slipping away pleasantly.

"Just go to sleep Pyrrha" Ren whispered.

Pyrrha was asleep. She had curled up into fetal position on top of her bed with her thumb resting against the lips of her slightly opened mouth and her long crimson hair sprawled out on the covers in an arc around her head. Nora tip toed over and pulled a lock of hair behind Pyrrha's ear and inquired.

"How?"

Ren whispered, "Jaune gave me tryptophan to put in the sandwich, and he'll be coming back later tonight with her tiara."

Nora didn't know what tryptophan was, but could tell it obviously had to do with putting Pyrrha to sleep, so felt no need to ask, but felt obligated to say "I don't think it qualifies as a tiara..."

"Well it's kinda like a crown, isn't it?"

"A crown is meant to be seen as an artifact of power, and gets bigger at the front. I don't think her qualifies if it is consistent all around and can easily be hidden by bangs..."

"So just a headpiece then?"

"Head dress?"

"I'll look it up later."

"Ren, I want a tiara, no, a crown! Then I can become queen!"

"You'll need a flag too though... and a kingdom."

Nora and Ren stayed up talking, but eventually even Nora tired out, the room falling into silence and dark, the three teens sleeping restfully. At the first hour of the next day, Jaune returned to the dorms, gently opening team RWBY's door and laying a repaired Crescent Rose at the foot of Ruby's bed, but made haste to leave to avoid waking Blake with her heightened senses, taking a full minute to close their door without sound. He repeated the quiet entry way into his room, tip toeing in to find the room as it was, calm. He laid the repaired head piece of Pyrrha's on top of her bed post where she wouldn't be able to miss it, and in doing so couldn't help to notice Pyrrha, sleeping so peacefully in her baggy pajamas with no concern of watching her flanks or giving the appearance of no weakness, for when awake, even when calm she keeps aware and on guard, never really relaxing. Only in these moments did she seem at peace.

He lightly dragged the back of his hand across her cheek, wondering if he should pull some blankets over her. She was warm, she was always warm, even when the snow fell she ran warmer than others. He chuckled, for he wanted to do the gentlemanly thing and cover her up, but there was no need, as she would probably just kick the sheets off in her sleep. Looking at her made him want to sleep, want to lay down just beside her and close his eyes, then the thought of laying down resurfaced images of his 'activities' with Ruby earlier that day, or rather of yesterday. Ruby's smooth milky skin, just like Pyrrha's, except lighter, her small cute mouth, her soft lips, undoubtedly like that of Pyrrha's, her beautiful silver eyes-

Jaune stopped. He quit looking at Pyrrha in his guilt and shame of desire, not feeling worthy of their gifts of intimacy. He was crushed. Why did Ruby have to kiss him? Jaune wanted Ruby, he wanted Pyrrha, but he hoped feelings for one would out shine the other eventually, allowing him to choose with sincerity rather than by random choice affected by greed and lust. As it rested now, if he had to choose, he would have to weigh pros and cons for the both of them, the choice being more mathematical rather than by feeling. He could hardly look at Ruby as it is without being crushed by guilt for her eye, and he still feels indebted to Pyrrha, Pyrrha having taught him everything he knows now. Jaune knew one thing, and that was he had fallen for the two red warriors, and he would pursue one, but he didn't expect the decision to be made so soon.

Or did it have to be? he thought. What if he told Ruby that their moment was just a rush of emotions on her part, and that he liked Ruby and all, but he needed time to warm up to the idea of romance? Jaune felt that would be straight up lying on his part. He knew he couldn't wait, but could, and if she was ready, a girl two years younger than him and a already accomplished Huntress in training who also already has faced harsh reality and lost an eye, he has no excuse. He would be weak and immature. He would have to swallow his pride in order to look Ruby in the face and tell her he's not ready. It would also make her anxious and uneasy, not knowing if he would come around one day or move on to another girl. It would be unfair as the decision would be left to his sub conscious.

Or, he could tell the truth. A dangerous truth. Ruby is expecting a response eventually from their little incident, and Jaune needs to gives it. He played it in his mind.

'Hey Ruby, I can't decide if I love you or Pyrrha more! I'm indecisive, so the decision may take awhile, in fact, one of you might get killed before I decide, kinda like how you lost your eye! That would really simplify things now wouldn't it!'

Then his imaginary Ruby promptly beheads him and presents his head to Pyrrha as a token of friendship. Or maybe a challenge.

A dangerous truth indeed.

Either way, Jaune wouldn't blame Ruby for any violent action taken upon him for saying anything resembling that. Jaune slapped himself for thinking like that, as one dying would be an insult to the other, basically saying they weren't good enough and therefore died because Jaune couldn't decide. If one died, Jaune would be absolutely heartbroken.

Pyrrha moaned and rolled over from the noise Jaune's slap caused. She remained asleep, but Jaune felt stupid. Jaune felt tired. He had been busy all day and needed to sleep on his concerns. He walked over to his bunk and pull out several bins from under his bed, and hid the presents in his backpack inside them. While waiting for the heating processes on Ruby's scythe and Pyrrha's head dress, Jaune went out into town and picked up his ordered presents from the post office, having done window shopping days prior and ordering online. He put in Ren's novel by Weiss's coffee, Nora's yo yo, Yang's baking set, Blake's folded easel, and in it's own separate bin, a custom magazine meant for Crescent Rose with 7 very expensive Anti-Matter-Anti-Grimm rounds, A-MAGs for short, wrapped in two separate clothes, one red and one black. Each cloth was a soft elastic head band that would wrap around Ruby's head and replace her current eye patch which digs into her skin and leaves marks. These head bands would be mark-less, hopefully warm, and would fit her head in a way that would still let her hair sit on top and act inconspicuous as can be. On the inside of each band is written the name and phone number of a ammo supplier with a request code. By calling the company and giving the request code, Ruby can have more A-MAGs delivered straight to her by air drop and the cost be directly pulled out of Jaune's bank account.

Jaune sighed. He only now realized the monetary cost discrepancy between the gifts, and he still needed to get Pyrrha something.

-End of Chapter 17-


	18. Chapter 18: Day 5 Clash of Red

Jaune laid down in his bed. It had been a long day, first finding Ruby and patching her up with some healing dust he bought for himself, fixing Crescent Rose, fixing Pyrrha's head piece, St. David's Day shopping, and finally rest. The knight was tucked under his covers all ready in his pajamas, the sleep in his eyes weighing down like anchors, his thoughts troubled but weak, the black consumed him.

Tap tap tap. On his window was the faintest of taps. Jaune sat up, and looked at the window. It was a crow. He checked his scroll.

"5' am" he whispered.

The crow looked at him with a fixed glare, almost deliberate. It tapped three times on the window again with it's beak.

"What the fuck..." Jaune whispered in his blood boiling rage. All he wanted was some sleep.

The crow retained it's stare. Jaune realized it was in fact deliberate. He stood up and tip toed over to the window, prying it open with the utmost care to avoid noise. Lifting it enough to peak his head through, the cold air stung against his face. The crow flew off the window ledge down to the ground and perched itself on top of a man's shoulder. At first Jaune didn't recognize him, his eyes not yet fully adjusted for the bright moonlight outside, but after squinting for a moment, he saw that the man was his grandfather.

The old man motioned with his hands for Jaune to come down. Jaune with haste threw on his jeans and hoody, leaving his armor behind, and wrapped himself in his grey trench coat. Out of habit, he brought Crocea Mors with him. He took great care to be silent all the while dressing so that he didn't disturb his teams sleep. Slipping through the door and down the stairs, Jaune made it out into the cold to the garden several stories down from his dorm's window. His grandfather rebounded off of the tree with his back and picked up his cane, the crow ever so still upon his shoulder.

With nerve burning curiosity that kept him warm even in the snow, Jaune asked in whisper, "Why are you here? Is something wrong?"

In his quiet and raspy yet rich voice, the man responded "Is something wrong? Well, that is for us to discover, but I do say I believe there is indeed something wrong. Follow me, I see that you brought Crocea... very good, very good." He walked past Jaune towards the main building.

"What is it that you think is wrong? Whats happening?" Jaune's curiosity instantly transformed to fear, his grandfather once again the harbinger of things to come, likely not for the better. The crow on his shoulder didn't help either.

"Drag your blade across your fingers" the man said as he opened the doors to Beacon. Jaune reeled back for a moment.

"Excuse me? I rather like my fingers, is there a reason for this?"

"Just one finger will do. You don't have to cut it off, just drag it." He took a left in the main hall and continued walking making it apparent to Jaune he knew where he was going.

"If you say so..." Jaune unsheathed his sword and as his grandfather asked dragged it across his finger. As expected, the blade felt wet against his skin having been sharpened recently, and parted way into his flesh, red running like an over flowing sink. Jaune winced from the sting. The grandfather could smell the blood.

"As I expected. This is good, this means that I have something to teach you." He opened the doors to the school arena, strolling into the inner ring and throwing his coat and hat off to the side revealing a white dress shirt underneath a gray with gunmetal gray pinstripe dress vest and gold pocket watch.

"Give me your sword" he asked. Jaune obliged.

He took the same section of sword that Jaune had used and cut himself with and drew it across his palm, the skin pressed down under the pressure, but no cut to be seen.

"How...?" Jaune whispered in amazement. His grandfather stopped him.

"-Aura. You didn't attend a combat school, correct?" He speech quickened along with his movements. Jaune notes that he has never seen his grandfather move this much or this fast.

"Yeah..."

"Then you still don't know everything you should know about aura. Or rather I should say, you don't know as much as everyone thinks they know about aura. I'm more than sure you're aware that aura shields you, warns you, heals you, enhances you, all to a degree, correct?"

"Yes"

"And that when a aura user runs into the 'red' with their aura, the protection part of aura starts to fail, correct?"

"Yes" the suspense of what his grandfather was getting to was killing him.

"And that when a aura user wears or wields anything, without thought that item becomes a conduit for their aura, so your clothes don't instantly burn off or get torn up, and your weapon doesn't break until you are ready to break, correct?"

"More or less"

"One of the things that a aura user must learn that doesn't come with the starter's package is intelligent aura."

"Intelligent aura?" Jaune repeated in confusion, for he up to this point never heard of it.

"It usually can't be taught but must be learned through trial and error, thus for curriculum that involves killing masses of Grim. We, my boy, are going to teach you a few tricks" the man pointed to Jaune with a smile and a glint in his eye.

Jaune was anxious but excited, but worried, for he wasn't stupid. He asked, "Why are you teaching this to me now?"

The man stopped smiling and stood straight once more, leaning back with his head tilted back as well, arms resting in front.

"We are aware of plans that involve Beacon and Vale, the residents and students alike are both targets and suspects, and the White Fang is involved, that is all I know. Qrow has been investigating for years now and now much more than me. He is currently keeping surveillance across the town, ready to alert us of any activity. We need you to be ready to fight."

Jaune noticed that the crow that was on his shoulder now sat on the window sill high above the bleachers and looked back and forth between them and outside. He figured he could ask more questions, but his grandfather probably wouldn't answer, but he had to try.

"Who is 'we'?"

"I can tell you Ozpin is one, and that is all. Lets begin." Jaune wasn't surprised at all that Ozpin was involved, after all, when has Ozpin not seemed like the kinda guy who would be controlling thing or knowing something he won't tell others. Jaune was pulled out of his thoughts when the marble floor in front of him was shattered by his grandfather.

Crocea Mors glowed with yellow characters.

Pyrrha dragged herself onto the North designation spot of the arena, searching for a reason to fight. While waiting through the three fights that proceeded her's, she couldn't find Jaune and when she woke up, he wasn't in bed but his bed had been slept in, at least a little. If Jaune wasn't here to watch her fight, Pyrrha found no reason to fight other than to not embarrass herself by giving up, especially since her opponent was Ruby. Even with the crowd roaring and the announcers blaring the recent hit "Caffeine" over the speakers, Pyrrha cocked her head to the side in boredom and disappointment.

Ruby recognized the song that was playing, "Caffeine" had been playing on the speaker of team CVFY's drop ship during the breach of Vale, Coco having apparently discovered the song and demanding from Ozpin to install a military blair speaker on their ship just so that they could ride into battle playing that song. Ruby overall felt pretty decent with herself; Jaune's healing dust really helped out with her injuries, Jaune fixed her weapon, Jaune made her feel like not a psychopath about what she did to Jack... and Ironwood helped make her not feel too bad either by forgiving her, Jaune comforted her, Jaune did other stuff that Ruby assume she just couldn't remember at the moment, which was true, and Ruby faces the chance to fight Pyrrha. All thoughts returned Ruby back to Jaune, and her fight with Pyrrha wasn't about the tournament but about Jaune too. The Rose knew Pyrrha was a likely contender for Jaune's attention, and if she could defeat Pyrrha, she would impress Jaune. Jaune would be hers.

Ruby laughed, she slapped herself to halt the cyclic thought process that lead all things to Jaune realizing how stalker-ish and obsessive it would sound if she were to say it someone. She let the intense, blood pumping music carry her to her happy battle place, and awaited the sound for the commencement of combat. Her smile confused Pyrrha.

"FIGHT!" And with that the words came in.

_Listen up strap in _

_notify your next of kin,_

Ruby was behind Pyrrha, the spear end of Crescent Rose shot past behind Ruby's back at Pyrrha but only skidded off her shield. Pyrrha slapped away the scythe with little enthusiasm, and thought more about Ruby's smile.

_You're about to take a ride_

_a little on the blazing side_

Crescent Rose's clip was emptied at point blank range, all shots blocked to no avail. Ruby danced to the rapid fire lyrics, slave to the rhythm.

_Guzzle down your red bull_

_you're gonna need a bucket full,_

A quick reload and the emptied clip flew past Pyrrha's face, Ruby whirled the scythe around her, the blade and spear end bouncing off of Pyrrha's shield eleven times over the course of a second, forcing Pyrrha back. Pyrrha wondered what could make Ruby so delighted to fight her, the smile reaching from ear to ear.

_You're watching me accelerate _

_and tear apart the interstate._

Ruby bounced in a five point star pattern with Pyrrha as the center, Pyrrha spinning in place to keep up with the punches. Ruby laughed with glee when finally a strike broke through and knocked Pyrrha off her feet.

_A certified monster _

_I'm an absolute trip_

Pyrrha looked up and saw Ruby block out the sun, and rolled over, causing Ruby to stab the ground with the spear end. Pyrrha knew that when fighting friends, usually you would pull your punches and kind of play with the other and escalate in power as the fight goes on, not go full hog in the first eleven seconds.

_Like Otis Redding hard to handle_

_so you better get a grip,_

Ruby stomped with both feet, forcing Pyrrha to roll into a standing position. Ruby thought 'control the person control the battle'.

_A super fast super-fly _

_bonafide wise guy,_

Ruby struck low, baiting Pyrrha to lean over to block giving little thought to tactics, and with her head low to the ground Ruby kicked dirt into Pyrrha's eyes as planned. Pyrrha thought maybe Ruby was smiling because she knew something Pyrrha didn't.

_Call the morgue and say goodbye _

_write your will it's time to die._

Ruby brought down the back side of Crescent Rose like a hammer upon Pyrrha's head, barely missing due to Pyrrha's stumbling back. Ruby appreciated the work Jaune did on her scythe, the bend being seemingly gone and the scythe holding up even after the smash into the ground, dirt and dust flying every where.

_Caffeeeeeeeeeeine. I'm caffeine._

_Caffeeeeeeeeeeine. I'm caffeine._

Pyrrha ran around Ruby as Ruby stood in place and fired shot after shot, Ruby more messing with Pyrrha than actually trying to hit her. Pyrrha thought, 'what if Ruby is smiling because something happened yesterday between her and Jaune, and thats why she's smiling, because I'm the butt monkey of one big joke I'm unaware of'.

_I'm a baaaaaaaaaaaaaaad dream._

Ruby popped in front of Pyrrha, and continued on a relentless assault. Pyrrha wanted to give up.

_I'm a raaaaaaaaaaaaaaad scene._

Ruby disappeared from in front of Pyrrha and appeared ten feet directly above her, firing her scythe upwards to go for a downward stab with her spear end, her feet cradling the bottom of the pole to aim, her stature resembling that of a child on a pogo stick. Pyrrha barely raised her shield above her head in time to block, and stumbled back as if fatigued from the blow. Ruby locked onto the shield as her new target, kicking off from the shield and firing again, kicking off the shield and firing again, the motion resembling a violent diagonal pogo stick sped up, and repeated this over nine times rapidly.

_I'm a taaaaaaaaaaaaaaad mean._

_But I'm noooooooooooooooooot-_

Pyrrha couldn't stand many more attacks, and her shield arm was bleeding and in pain, her knees ready to buckle. Then she thought about her head piece she found repaired and perfect that morning, and tilted her head up. Through her shield and through the dust that had been kicked up, through the holo screen protecting the audience, she saw Jaune walk in through the audience' entrance.

_-afraid to take you out._

Pyrrha let down her shield and turned down to her left, Crescent Rose's spear end flying past her right shoulder, and she lifted her right elbow, the barrel running along her skin, she jerked her arm back, Ruby's face caught on the point of Pyrrha's elbow and went sailing backwards. The crowd screamed.

Ruby stood up, 20 feet away, holding her nose in her left hand, blood flowing freely. She looked to her left at Pyrrha, and took a low stance. Pyrrha pointed her sword, Milo, at Ruby, then smiled, flexing her fingers holding Milo towards her, inviting Ruby to fight. Pyrrha took a low stance.

"Oh my..." said Jaune weakly.

"What did you do Jaune?!" Weiss screeched, demanding an answer.

"Eh, I... I don't know" he said, mostly truthful.

_I'm a cheetah on the plains I'm the highway star,_

Pyrrha closed the distance between her and Ruby, Ruby swung, Pyrrha slid underneath and kicked upward, Ruby dodged with a back flip.

_A supersonic princess in a million dollar car,_

Pyrrha still on the ground flipped herself around into standing at the same time as kicking out Ruby's legs.

_Blood on fire pumping through my veins, _

Pyrrha slammed Milo down upon Ruby, Ruby blocked with the pole of her scythe.

_Weaving in and out while I'm bolting through the lanes,_

Pyrrha hooked her shield Akouo with the pole part of Crescent Rose and lifted both scythe and Ruby over her head and threw them into the ground.

_I'm hyperdrive overdrive hit the gas at fifty-five,_

Ruby bounced off the ground and got kicked away by Pyrrha.

_Breakneck train-wreck in my presence genuflect,_

Ruby dashed at Pyrrha only to get round house punched with Akouo, stopping her in her tracks.

_Track-roundin' speed-a-soundin' electrifyin' pulse-poundin',_

_Heart-pumpin' brain-thumpin' watch me get the party jumpin'._

Pyrrha slapped Ruby back and forth with the blunt side of Milo, Ruby unable to break out of it.

_Caffeeeeeeeeeeine. I'm caffeine._

_Caffeeeeeeeeeeine. I'm caffeine._

Pyrrha got behind Ruby and wrapped Crescent Rose around her neck. She lifted Ruby off the ground then bent backwards and drove Ruby headfirst into the dirt. Ruby got back up, but could barely see straight after the beating she just took.

_I'm a baaaaaaaaaaaaaaad dream,_

Pyrrha walked up to Ruby and waited, hands on her hips.

_I'm a raaaaaaaaaaaaaaad scene,_

Ruby swung blindly, Pyrrha jumped over it then stomped down onto Crescent Rose, disarming Ruby.

_I'm a taaaaaaaaaaaaaaad mean,_

Pyrrha kicked Ruby down into a kneeing position.

_But I'm nooooooooooooot-_

Pyrrha held her sword to Ruby's face.

_-afraid to take you out!_

And then she slapped her. Ruby's aura hit red. The music stopped to signify the end of the battle, but so did too the crowd. Ruby looked up to Pyrrha, a tear forming in her eye above her red cheek. The silence carried on.

"Come on, lets go clean up" She held out her hand, picking up the Rose from the dirt with a tender smile. Ruby accepted.

The crowd of hundreds of thousands whooped and hollered, clapping at the spectacle before them.

Yang cried while laughing, "NO! She was so close! She had it but then she didn't! AHH NOO!"

"I know Yang, it's hard for me too..." Weiss comforted Yang with a side hug.

"HA HA like a QUEEN!" Nora shouted. Ren looked at her sideways.

"Oh my..." Jaune repeated.

-That Night-

"So who do you think you're going to fight tomorrow?" asked Sage.

Team RWBY, JNPR, and SSSN found themselves at Darkbucks™ sitting around a large smooth circular oak table in the corner of the building underneath a warm and bright lamp. Pyrrha took a sip of her Amber tea before speaking.

"I don't know to be honest" she said. Looking at the TV screen above the cashier counter, she saw an ad reading 'Nikos; just do it!' prompting her to chuckle.

"Yeah, I've seen all the previous years since my birth, and they keep no consistency in who they choose for the opponent on the fifth day-" Neptune waved his Mistral Mistress alcoholic beverage around wildly, yet managed to spill not a single drop somehow.

"-yeah?-" Sun said in a daze, laughing to himself and leaning on his hand, staring at the bottom of his Vacuo Sunshine.

"-Yeah!- One year, one year... one year they brought in a celebrity who had been training privately-" Neptune continued.

"-Yeah! no, Yeah! That was uh, oh, what was his name...?" Yang wondered aloud, knocking over several empty bottles of her 'Just Right' wheat brews.

"-It was Spruce Willis-" Weiss answered before returning to ordering another 'Atlas Iced' coffee.

"-What happened to your cast?" asked Scarlet, directed at Jaune.

"-And then another year it was the contestant runnin' in third place they made the final opponent... actually thats what they do most years... third or fourth... yeah..." continued Neptune.

"-Oh, apparently it healed overnight, so the nurse removed it immediately..." Jaune answered to Scarlet.

"I wouldn't be surprised if they brought in Nora as your opponent. After all, she was disqualified and not actually defeated, making her the best candidate to defeat you, no offense." Said Ren, sipping away at his Grim Black coffee.

"No, I understand what you mean, it makes sense" confirmed Pyrrha.

Jaune whispered to himself, "Ya know what doesn't make sense? The fact that a coffee shop sells all the alcohol in the world..." as he thumbed through the menu, keeping track of the bill.

"Oh don't fret, I'll cover half..." Weiss interjected.

Nora flashed a laser pointer across the table, prompting a Blake filled with vineyard white wine to lunge forward with her top half to catch the dot, knocking over a sleeping Ruby's milk, the milk spilling onto Sun's pants in the crotch area. Everyone awake laughed and chuckled, Yang spitting out her beer into Scarlet's face in her humor, and Nora jumped up and down in pride and joy.

"Ah nwao! I had an accident guys!" Sun laughed.

"Ah, here, I'll get napkins" said Sage, getting up to do as he said.

"I bet I could beat you!" Nora leaned over the table and pointed accusatorially in Pyrrha's face with a ambitious smile. "Don't you think Ren?"

"Is that a challenge, Nora?" Pyrrha stood up, facing Nora, mirroring her smile.

"I wouldn't gamble on it, I'll leave it at that" Ren chuckled.

"Betrayal! Ren, re-earn your honor!" This time she pointed at Ren.

"If I have no choice, I'll die doing so!" Ren put his elbow on the table and held out his arm to the opposite side where Pyrrha sat.

"I see how it is!" Pyrrha grabbed his hand and placed her elbow on the table as well. Jaune counted down from three, and on 'go' Pyrrha slammed Ren's hand into the table, winning the arm wrestle.

"Oh no! I must regain Ren's honor myself!" Nora said excitedly, putting out her arm. Ren laid his head down in defeat.

"Your opponent this time will be me!" Jaune got in on the action.

"Go!" said Pyrrha, leaning back with her feet on the table in all her glory.

Nora used her semblance of force and smashed Jaune's hand into the table... and through the table, shattering it into pieces. Pyrrha, Jaune, Ruby, Blake, Sun, Neptune, Yang, and Ren all fell forward into a pile on the floor. Weiss continued filing her nails while Scarlet laughed. Sage came back with the napkins, but upon seeing the wreck, dropped them.

"OUT OF MY SHOP!" screamed the store owner.

-End of Chapter 18-

**Hey guys! I'm excited to say this tournament arc is coming to an end soon with only two fights left! Just a quick announcement though, to any one who would like to read more RWBY stories like this, but maybe follow different characters, on my (rather bleak and empty) profile page is a poll where you can vote for who will be the first focus of my next story. 'A Knight, A Champion, A Rose' isn't ending, but rather a separate fan fic in the same continuity as this one will follow from other characters perspectives. Eventually, I'll have all eight main characters covered, but for now I have to figure out who next. So yeah, theres that and I just want anyone whose read thus far in the story to know that I, uh, love you, thats right, I love you, and anyone who took their time out of their day to review this, my day is made reading your thoughts. You should know that. All right, thats all, have a good time you lovely people!**


	19. Chapter 19: Flaunting Power

**Hey guys, another announcement! I will start the first chapter of my second story on the 25th of December along with the next chapter of this story, meaning that the polls for which character will be the focus of the second story will close at the minute before midnight on the 24th (sorry for the run on sentence). Not many people have voted in the polls meaning that fortunately if you do vote, your choice will proportionately be worth alot more than it would be in a usual poll. So yeah, if you care to read a similarly written story that takes place in this story's timeline, go ahead and find the poll in my profile page and vote for your favorite character! Now enough shameless guilt ridden advertising and on with the show! (I am actually ashamed to advertise like that...)**

Yang rubbed Jaune's lowered head affectionately as she walked by his side.

"It's... okay... I'm sure you'll get more allowance money soon" she said weakly.

Jaune held back tears. Nothing too serious to actually cry about, but Jaune's sanity was at it's breaking point, his moment of solace and peace ripped away violently and the wound rubbed with salt, for it was left to him to pay for the broken table and all the drinks, Weiss having 'forgotten' her wallet. After all of his present shopping, setting up a bank account for Ruby's ammo gift, paying for the forty seven expensive beverages, the oak round table, all on top of the burden of paying for weekly excursions to Vale seeming to fall exclusively on Jaune, his allowance and wallet were literally empty. That along with living off of only four hours of sleep a night lest he have nightmares, and working on his second all-nighter in a row of which was preceded by a hospital stay, and now was carrying Ruby on his back, hiking uphill to Beacon, while it was 10ªF out, at 2:00 am in the morning, all left Jaune... tired.

'I just want some sleep-' he cried inside to himself.

All twelve of the teenagers were walking back to Beacon from their hang out at Darkbucks™, previously deciding to take the ground path rather than the air way, seeing the fresh air and exercise as a chance to sober up and the extra time let them talk plenty. The side walks were clear of snow as they were consistently salted by the city servicemen, making the trek a little more bearable for Jaune, and regardless of his complaints of being the one who had to carry a sleeping Ruby, her warmth and softness against his back kept him going, her light weight not bringing Jaune down at all. Jaune's one quasi quarrel with the setup was the fact that if he gave any thought to the feeling of Ruby's breast pressing against him or the feeling of her legs wrapped around his midsection, he would speed up ahead of the group so no one could see his fifth member rise inside his jeans. He did this regularly.

While the group talked, Jaune kept to himself, thinking. Something that fascinated Jaune as well as creeped him out because how much thought he gave it was the difference in scents between teams RWBY and JNPR. As he carried Ruby, he began to memorize her scent, similar to how he did the same for Pyrrha, being around her so much and all. Ruby had little in the way of smell, what could be best described as 'soft and sweet', like if one could smell sugar water, hardly existent at all. Even Blake had more in the way of scent. Jaune came to recognize her's as paper-ish, Yang, clean clothes and conditioned hair, Weiss, perfume, Ren, cloth, Nora, maple and sometimes sulfur, but most distinctive of all was Pyrrha, who from fifteen feet Jaune could recognize with a blindfold; Sweat, oil, and bronze, like battle, yet still somehow endearing.

Jaune attributed Ruby's lack of smell to her probably not using any special product but keeping clean and never breaking a sweat. The rest of the group continued talking, mostly about plans for St. Davids Day, but Jaune remained in his thoughts.

'Does Blake have heightened smelling? I know most Faunus have night vision, but what about the other senses? I mean, if she's like a cat, then she could probably track really well... actually, how come are Faunus treated like second class citizens? I mean, if a Faunus has realistically several unfair advantages over regular humans, where as humans have only numbers... How did 'regular' humans ever dominate most of the kingdoms then? If there are two competing races, and one is easily superior to the other, how come they're the underdogs? That would mean something had to happen way back in the past that would put them under us...'

Jaune fell deep into theories in his head that his pace slowed down enough to put him at the back of the group, and upon a corner where everyone turned left, Jaune marched forward, unaware. Pyrrha noticed quickly enough, running back to grab the boy and redirect him up the hill.

The knight, the champion, and the rose earned distance from the pack because of their small detour, but were still in sight, following behind.

Pyrrha smiled as she looked over her shoulder, lights glimmering in her vivid green eyes as she told Jaune "look..."

Still continuing uphill, Jaune too looked over his shoulder and smiled. The city of Vale, vast and varied, was covered in snow, as it had been for weeks now, the black and stary night a contrasting backdrop to the glow emanating from street lights, neon signs, and windows filed throughout the city, as they always were, the shattered moon reciprocating the bastion of light beneath it, as it always had. The sight they had as they gained altitude was a beautiful one, one that Jaune had overlooked for a long time now, and Pyrrha made him look at it once again. Looking at the city gave him a clarity of mind, the size and scale which dwarfed him made it feel like he wasn't actually going anywhere, the hike not actually a hike but a shift in position, opposed to staring at the dark, shadowed gray concrete feet from his face, each tile he walked over a tiring journey of it's own, each step wielding importance and burden. Looking at the city gave him clarity of mind because instead of racking up a list of obstacles over come to achieve so little, the beauty of the city is a reward that distracts from the mundane monotony. Jaune found it interesting how distractions play such a massive role in keeping people sane, yet distractions are regarded with negativity, not facing a strict reality somehow being a crime, even if the distraction is a optimistic reality.

The boy laughed, "Thank you" he whispered, still looking over his shoulder and smiling earnestly.

She chuckled, "For what?" she said, but before he could respond, he caught his foot on a black rock on the sidewalk invisible in the dark of night, the uphill path they traveled unlit by street lamps for some asinine reason.

Getting back up, Jaune thought 'I'll give them credit though, a distraction is a distraction, but as my family says, "Everything in moderation, including moderation".'

"You ok?" she said more out of habit than actual concern. She had enough faith in Jaune to know he could survive tripping.

"Heh, you gotta have a little more faith in me, I don't think a split second stumble is gonna kill me Pyrrha..."

"True, but is Ruby still secured?" she teased.

"Of course! I'll keep Ruby's secureness secured with my life!" he exclaimed back. "Anyways, thank you..." this time, he spoke in whispers.

"I should be the one thanking you Jaune. I don't think you realize the importance of what you did." Pyrrha was walking in front of him now, backwards and facing him, still on a decent incline. If it was anyone else, Jaune would've thought that they were teasing him by flaunting their physical prowess and unfettered states. But it was Pyrrha, so Jaune knew she wanted face time.

Jaune started sweating, "You don't know about your present already, do you?" he inquired in a panic.

Pyrrha looked at him in confusion, "Hmmm? No, I'm referring to my head piece- wait, when did you get my present?" Jaune wanted to sheep out of the question, but figured lying would require more thinking than it was worth.

"Uhm... before your uh, before your fight..." It was the truth, but he didn't mention anything about his grandfather's training session that went on for hours upon hours.

Pyrrha turned forward again, still ahead of Jaune, and with her fingers intertwined in front of her and closed eyes, she suppressed a giggle and settled for a wide smile. She stopped walking, halting Jaune as well, and turned around. Gently taking hold of his head, Pyrrha leaned forward, eyes closed, and kissed Jaune on the forehead before she thought about what she was doing. The feeling was soft and warm, and the momentary embrace made Jaune feel nothing but comfort. It wasn't anything at all like the tense kiss with Ruby, but he thought maybe it was unfair comparing a kiss on the lips after almost killing another human to a kiss on the forehead after a mostly fun night out.

Then she opened her eyes and they made eye contact. Even in the cold and dark, they could see the luminescent blush on each other's faces. Both teenagers were at a lost for words, and stared like deer in the headlights. Pyrrha considered apologizing, but she stopped herself. This wasn't something she wanted to say 'sorry' about.

"Heh heh, hey, uhm... wanna fight?" asked Jaune, his sweat picking up again.

Pyrrha turned forward once again and continued on, tripping over her feat every few seconds. "Some practice? I guess we can before we turn in for the night..." As Pyrrha figured, Jaune was changing the subject for their sake, moving on from the awkwardness, albeit his suggestion rather irrelevant. She didn't figure that Jaune actually wanted to test what his grandfather taught him on her to gauge his growth as a fighter.

A silence remained between them all the way back to their dorms, somehow inexplicably bouncing between an awkward silence and a comfortable one. Jaune entered RWBY's room where the other girls were setting up for bed and slid Ruby off his back into a bridal carrying position, laying her gently into her precarious bunk bed. The moment he did so, Weiss kicked him off, saying his services were no longer required. The door shut on Jaune's foot as he walked out, prompting him to say to Pyrrha who was waiting for him,

"Grateful, right?" rolling his eyes.

"Jaune, you're a teenage boy in a room full of teenage girls who want to change and get into bed, I don't believe it should come as a surprise that you're unwelcome" she said with arms crossed.

"Yeah, you're right. Uh, should we go now?" implored Jaune about the practice fight.

"Where you two going?" Nora asked excitedly, her smile changing into a mischievous grin.

"We're going to practice a little, seeing how we haven't done so for a while" the girl in red said.

"We'll be back soon."

The two warriors made their way to the school arena with their gear, all the while Jaune pondered how familiar he had become with the path he took from his dorm to the arena. He took this path more than any other route after leaving Beacon and going to the cafeteria he felt. They agreed to use the arena over the rooftop for the sake of the cold being a little too much to handle after warming up momentarily inside, and once inside, Pyrrha inquired.

"Do you know what happened to the floor?" referring to the smashed marble and hash marks littered about.

Jaune shrugged his shoulders. "I wouldn't know..." he lied.

"Alright, lets begin" the Champion said, placing herself inside the inner circle several meters from Jaune.

They wasted no time to start fighting. This time was a little different however from their regular training sessions. First, both of them had their shields. Second, Jaune was serious, but Pyrrha's mind was not in the fight. Third, both were absolutely exhausted, to each their own reasons. Regardless, Pyrrha was obviously owning the fight like usual.

Jaune strikes forward, Pyrrha lazily sidesteps it, Jaune swipes to the side, she parries effortlessly, she slaps him in the ribs with the flat sides of her blade, he stumbles to the side, attacks again. This repeated several times, Pyrrha's responses honed and tempered by her high speed battle with Ruby earlier in the day, allowing her to effectively see the fight in slow motion, at least even more so than usual. Not actually trying to fight Jaune, Pyrrha brought up what was on her mind, Jaune only barely listening as he swung with passion.

"I started to mention it earlier but I didn't really get to thank you properly..." she said softly, side stepping Jaune and slapping his back with Milo.

'_Aura protects against two specific things under two conditions: Force and penetration within a margin. When? Only when it is not self inflicted or allowed, and when there is enough aura to begin with.' _Jaune recalled his grandfather telling him after dragging Crocea Mors across his hand to no effect.

"The fact that you repaired my head piece without me even having to ask you..." she tapped her forehead with her shield hand while parrying with the other.

'_This is where intelligent aura plays in. Aura being a manifestation of our souls, our intentions can change it's behavior. This is in part how semblances work, but that's another story. Normally, one can inflict self harm without their aura protecting themselves in a sense similar to how one cannot tickle themselves, but anyone else's hands will set off the nerves.' _As the elder said this, Jaune traced his neck to no effect, but he knew full well from his seven sisters that he was indeed ticklish.

"I am ashamed to say, but... I got really upset when I discovered it broke..." she looked down with a small nervous smile, stepping back out of range of Jaune's attack.

'_The weapon one wields becomes a conduit for their aura as you know, therefore, your aura treats it as apart of your body. This strengthens the weapon and clothes you wear, but allows for the possibility of injury if you're not careful. With practice however, you can expand your control on aura, and become intimate with it's workings.'_ The elder rolled up his sleeves and tossed Crocea back to Jaune, picking his cane back up.

"This is something I inherited from my mother. It is very dear to me..." at that she lightly stepped forward and head butt Jaune, forcing him back, all with a light smile on her face and a soft voice.

'_I think to myself, I do not wish to be cut by this blade, and even if it's my own blade, it won't cut me, with practice, spare aura, and to a degree of course. There is a breaking point to everyone's shield. The more aura they have at the moment, the greater the breaking point. Surpass that point, and your opponent is guaranteed to be defeat-able, that is if they haven't already lost.' _Jaune understands.

"It is one of the few things I have left of my mother" there was sadness in her voice, but the smile on her face suggested otherwise. Jaune knew Pyrrha enough to know she wouldn't let anyone see her in a mood unless she wanted them to.

"Is she...?" Jaune said slowly in-between his gasps for air. He was getting tired. More so than he already was.

"She passed away soon after I was born" she whispered, locking blades with Jaune.

"I'm sorry..." he whispered back, pushing with all his might, breaking the sword lock.

'_This leads me into what I think you should know. A family technique specific to Crocea Mors. With intelligent aura, it can perform different tasks, or rather, take on a different nature. Your friend Ren projects aura into attacks, correct? And you've seen how alot of people bounce around like rubber balls, correct? All aura effects. I wish to jump higher, I wish to transfer impact with my fists, I wish to wield my weapon as if it was glued to me and weighed nothing, I wish to strike harder, cut better. All variations of aura augmentation, most people don't even think about it. Most aura effects are a result of personality actually rather than deliberate choise.' _Jaune connected the dots, everything making sense to him. How his friends fighting styles match their character.

"It is one of my most precious possessions, and although I could've fixed it myself, I'm unsure if I could've done it right the first try, especially in the state I was in. You beat me to it. You did a great job too." Her voice picked up, as did her movements. Playfully, she tapped Jaune's sword up high, he went low, she tapped it again, a flurry of strikes all lightly matched, different notes of metallic resonance playing a song to the fighters.

'_Look at the last inch of your blade before the tip. You'll see that one side is faintly rounder and duller than the other, correct?' _Jaune nodded.

'_Push that portion into ground, but push forward as well, try to cut in front of you. Now concentrate, think of passing your blade through the ground, push harder, will your blade into appearing in front of you.' _Jaune pushed the blade into the ground and felt himself exerting even more force into the ground, more than he could do usually it seemed, but only a little more. To his shock, in the faintest of light, yellow characters appeared down the length of his blade.

'_Now instead of pushing down into the ground, push along the ground upwards.' _Jaune let the edge run along the ground, grinding metal and sparks flying as it slowly crawled. It crawled until it hit a point where the friction no longer applied, and the blade launched up with enough force to put Jaune off balance. The yellow lettering faded back to grey.

"You've been so considerate, you might remember, but, you are one of my first friends ever. My best friend in fact..." Pyrrha started to loose concentration. She wanted to tell him 'Thank you and I love you' but she couldn't risk Jaune reacting poorly, as saying such a loaded statement can cause any number of ill consequences. The words became difficult to form.

'_I'll show you one more time.'_ The elder took back Crocea. '_There is a reason why our lineage is named 'Arc'. I'm going to perform a guard break, so watch closely.' _The grandfather held the sword in both hands in front of him, the sword perpendicular to him and the edge to the ground. Using the blunter edge, he lowered the blade onto the ground, and without shifting or changing his grip on the handle, he turned his arms over to flip the blade 360º counter clockwise from his perspective, blunt edge still against the marble floor in front of him. His left foot moved back to give him a wide stance and kept his right foot pointing forward, giving him the maximum forward backward support. He dragged the blade towards his left foot, leaving a gash in the marble floor and a distinct lack of sparks, his movement slow for Jaune's sake. The sword kept moving away from where the elder was looking, but the yellow letters on the blade illuminated once again, this time illuminating the arena room. His right arm reached the limit of how much it could cross over his chest, and in the final moment, the sword edge left the ground, the built up force and strength being unleashed all in a moment, and the elder carried the sword in a arc over his head, a yellow crescent moon left as a after image, and the sword went into the ground, marble chunks flying in all directions.

'_This is why we were dubbed the 'Arc' family many generations ago.' _He looked straight into Jaune's eyes. His face serious.

_ 'And before you continue to practice this, you should be made aware of something. Crocea Mors means 'Yellow Death' in latin, and thats what is etched into the blade.' _Jaune looked in confusion to his grandfather. 'What is latin?' he thought.

"So... thank you Jaune. Thank you for being there for me," she gave a quick chuckle, "even if you weren't there for the some of my fights, you made up for it in the end..." She smiled with all her heart to Jaune.

Jaune pressed his blade into the ground with all his might, using his shield hand to assist him, and dragged the blade along the ground behind him, sparks blinding Pyrrha. The sword lifted off the ground, lifting Jaune with it, and he carried the momentum and force over his head, the blade showing hints of yellow letters, but too faint for Pyrrha to notice. She did notice the sudden change in attack pattern, and reacted accordingly by lifting her shield instead of parrying. Jaune brought down the blade upon Pyrrha's shield.

The force knocked her arm away completely, denting the shield as well in the process, but worse yet, her arm being still bruised and unhealed from the fight with Ruby, the guard break caused pain to flood her entire left side. In that moment, Pyrrha's instincts told her she was in actual combat, and instinctively carried the momentum of her flung left side into a full spin right legged kick to Jaune's temple, the armor bringing pain and confusion to Jaune's senses.

After kicking Jaune, Pyrrha screamed out once in pain, blood coming from her arm. She did not have the benefit of adrenaline running in her system to numb the pain, so she sat on her knees and held her arm tightly, grinding her teeth to bear the lasting pain.

"Sorry!" she said through her teeth, not having intentionally kicking Jaune.

He got back up and stumbled to where she was sitting, plopping down next to her. In his daze, he clumsily pulled from his pocket his green jelled dust for healing applications, the same dust mix he used to help Ruby. Originally he got it for himself, but he healed fast enough that it wasn't worth using the super expensive cream on himself. Pyrrha had a fight however the next day, and was in a lot of pain, so to Jaune, it was worth it. He waited a moment to see straight before helping out Pyrrha.

He pulled off her shield much to her discomfort. He hated seeing her face contort so much, the sight alone being enough the make him regret trying what he learned. Pyrrha started to cry silently. She looked at the ceiling, she didn't want to look at her arm. Jaune untied the string to the metal wrapping around her arm, the metal slightly warped from the abuse it had taken over the course of the tournament. Removing it, he slid off the maroon sleeve getting a full view of her arm, and was surprised. The entire arm from her wrist to where the metal wrapping ended was black and blue with bruising, and skin had broken along the top where the metal wrapping started and stopped. Her wrist had the worst of it, the skin and bone having the least amount of muscle and fat in between them, leaving the wrist fractured and the skin torn.

"I'm so sorry. I'm going to make it better" Jaune whispered with tears in his throat.

Pyrrha didn't respond, but kept looking at the ceiling, humming to herself. Jaune took the rest of his vial and poured it along her arm, making sure to get more on her wrist than not. The dust was warm from his pocket, so the warm fluid left Pyrrha pleasantly surprised with the feeling. He begun rubbing the healing dust up and down her arm, getting the dust to seep into the skin. Pyrrha started off by squirming from the contact, but got used to it. Soon though, it was no longer her pain tolerance at work but the effects of the dust leaving a pleasant cool feeling.

With Jaune carrying all their gear, they made it back to their dorm, Pyrrha giddy from the transition of great pain to a nice feeling and trying to suppress her giggles as they walked in. The lights were off and Ren and Nora were asleep in there beds.

"I'm starting to think that cream has 'happy' drugs in it..." he whispered in response to Pyrrha's giddy attitude.

"Oh hush you- it's just that it hurt alot and now it doesn't, meaning that it in comparison to before it feels amazing" Pyrrha's usual composed and structured demeanor was gone and replaced with a more relaxed and free flow one. Jaune would find it cute if he wasn't suspicious that she was possibly high off of the healing dust.

_But then that would mean that I would be high too. I mean, I used my hands to rub it in, so I guess not..._

He entered the bathroom and searched for bandages. Pyrrha sat down on her bed. Jaune came back and sat next to her, she handed her arm to him. With care, using the moonlight as his work lamp, he wrapped her arm tightly enough to hold the muscle to the bone and hold the skin together, but loose enough to keep blood flow so they wouldn't have to amputate her arm in the morning. Once he was done, he laid back, his feet still on the ground but the rest of his body on her bed, and let out a long sigh. "Done" he whispered.

Pyrrha followed suit and laid back, her arms outstretched and hanging off the other side of the bed like Jaune's.

"I'm sorry" the boy whispered, a yawn escaping soon after, his eyes heavy.

"What was that move you did? Compared to how you usually are, that was powerful" she yawned right after him.

"Uhm, uh, se- ve ne- family thing..." he mumbled. He yawned.

"Interesting. I've never seen you use it before" she responded. She yawned.

"Yeah, I couldn't figure it out until recently" he got even quieter. He closed his eyes.

"Well it's good that you did. I'm impressed" her words trailed off, she closed her eyes.

"Hmmm. Yeah..." he mumbled.

"Yeahhh, sers.. sersly, goo' job."

"Srry bi deh way"

"Hmm. s'kay"

"Hmm"

"Hm-hmm"

"Goo'... Goo' nite..."

"Hmmmmmmmm. nite'..."

Sleep fell upon them like a brick wall, unable to resist. In their sleep, they both rested one hand on their chest, and the other off to the side. Their mouths barely agape, something between soft snoring and breathing emanated from their slumber. For the first time since arriving at Beacon, Jaune slept through the night without nightmares.

-Next Morning-

"Fine..." Ren submitted.

"Yes!" Nora quietly exclaimed.

Ren grabbed his small pan flute from his hidden bed stash and quickly wiped it off with a towel. He placed himself in front of the still sleeping Pyrrha and Jaune, lifted the wooden contraption, and played as Nora opened the curtains, flooding the room with light.

_Duu Du du du du da Du du du du du Du Duu du Da-Doo do DA-DOO du da-doo du duu... _

Jaune and Pyrrha slowly sat up, covering their eyes from the light. They mumbled a bit incoherently before prying open their eyes to find a picture in their face. Nora held proudly a printed photograph of Pyrrha and Jaune cuddling together in their sleep, and from what could be guessed, they were snoring.

Jaune had to give Nora credit, unless she carried a printer around, she must've taken the picture with her scroll, ran down to the photography class, break into the photography class, hacked the computers to use them, print the picture, ran all the way back, all at... he checked the time on his scroll... '_oh, it's 10 am, never-mind'_. He yawned.

"What- What about it?" Pyrrha blushed and avoided all eye contact with her team mates.

Jaune took Pyrrha's left arm without her notice, and began to unwrap the gauze.

"I just thought you two looked absolutely adorable, and we have to cherish these memories right?" Nora put her hands on her hips in a victorious pose accompanied by a victorious grin, absolutely delighted with her work.

Jaune smiled, her arm was as good as new. There were no bruises, no cuts, no apparent fractures, Pyrrha didn't wince in pain, although she was still distracted by Nora. Jaune looked at Ren and nodded. Ren could guess what happened and nodded back.

"If you please, just don't flaunt those around..." Pyrrha continued.

"It's nearing time to go" Ren interjected.

"Yeah, and today we'll get to see who you fight. I'm curious, is all." said Jaune.

Nora tilted her head, "do you think they would call me down from the stands if I was chosen to fight?"

Pyrrha picked up her gear from the floor, giving a small sigh. Her sleeve was still dirty with blood, but it would have to do. "Maybe..."

-Later-

This was it. This was the final one on one fight of the year. After this fight, it would be the team battles which for the first years seemed to be in favor of Beacon. Reports stated that the gambling racks actually were closed for the first years final fight seeing how if Beacon were to win, which everyone did bet on, then the gambling racketeers wouldn't be able to pay off everyone who betted.

_I just have to get through this fight then I'll be home free_ Pyrrha thought. She listened to the announcer as she found her way onto the dirt arena, finding her spot at the north point.

"Entering now! Representing Beacon, Four time winner of the Mistral Regional Tournament, and mascot for Pumpkin Pete's Marshmallow Flakes, PYRRHAAAAAAA NIKKKKKKKOOOS!" He cried out, the crowd of hundreds of thousands cheering for the last fight of the day, the previous three being extremely high in intensity and from what they've seen of Pyrrha, they were confident she would not disappoint.

"Here it is! Whose she going to fight?!" Yang clenched her hands and waved them up and down in excitement, the rest of her friends doing something similar.

"Is-it-going-to-be-me IS-IT-GOING-TO-BE-ME?" Nora shook in anxiety. She held Magnhild ready to jump from the stands and fight.

"First time combatant, hailing from Atlas, representing the Atlas military, PENNYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!" Penny walked in from the south entrance, waving to the crowd timidly. The crowd cheered regardless, excited for whatever was to come.

"Oh no..." Ruby whispered to herself. "She's being advertised..."

Everyone in team RWBY looked between each other, including Sun, worried about all the things that could go wrong, but everyone else was clueless as to what they were in for.

_Where are her weapons? Is she a brawler? Caster? Or is that her ability, to keep her opponent wondering? _Pyrrha's mind was working to come up with a plan, but she didn't have the most basic of information about who she was fighting.

The atlas anthem begun playing, worrying Pyrrha more than anyone else.

_If they're that confident she'll win that they will risk playing their anthem, I'm scared._

"If Ms. Pyrrha Nikos can defeat our guest combatant, Vale receives bonus points for this years tournament! BEGIN!" the announcer called.

From Pyrrha's eyes, at least seven swords appeared from nowhere to surround Penny. Pyrrha held her shield up and decided on range, seeing as how Penny could apparently levitate many objects at once and could probably control them just as well, held milo as a spear for the moment. She shivered.

_I can levitate my one weapon for several seconds, but I exhaust my self in doing so. She can levitate many for at least ten seconds it seems and she still has the same cheery smile. She is either fooling me or has an outrageous amount of aura. _

The red warrior stepped forward shield raised and spear in front, waiting for the other to attack first. And so she did. The other girl, Penny, said something Pyrrha couldn't make out, and launched herself into the air. Pyrrha's jaw dropped when she saw the ground beneath Penny break and scatter when Penny jumped. Almost forgetting herself, Pyrrha rolled to her left as several blades rained down on where her right shoulder was.

_She crossed the attack... is she right handed? I think...?_

Penny's swords settled in a semi circle above the girl in the bow and pointed themselves towards Pyrrha. Penny motioned her right hand in front of her while she threw her left behind, and the swords pelted Pyrrha's shield like rain.

_Yes! She aimed with her right hand! She is right handed. But how is she holding this up, and how did the ground break? Important thing is, if I grab her arm, she can't control her swords._

Penny threw her right hand forward again, but made a stirring motion with her left, then pulled back with both suddenly. The swords pelted Pyrrha's shield again, this time harder. Pyrrha braced herself, feeling her shield lifting upwards with the swords. Without realizing it, the swords returned back to Penny, plowing their way through Pyrrha from behind in a spinning disc shape. It was moments like these where Pyrrha appreciated armor such as she was wearing, otherwise her back might of folded in a bad way. She did however get knocked forward. Penny prepared a saw made of blades where Pyrrha was going to land, but Pyrrha shifted her weight, missing the swords just barely.

She rushed to her feet, jabbing wildly with her spear, most strikes being repelled by a barrier of blades surrounding Penny. Steeling herself, Pyrrha put all her might into a straight stab to Penny, and it slipped through, landing the tip on Penny's abdomen. The tip just stopped at the surface, Penny didn't budge, and the barrier knocked Milo out of Pyrrha's hand, landing a distance away to Penny's side.

Pyrrha panicked. _Nothing happened! It was like punching a boulder! Who is this girl?!_

The swords made a semi halo around Penny once again, and pointed all at Pyrrha. They struck like serpents, but Pyrrha slid underneath, right up to Penny. The red warrior made a feint to her left then sidestepped behind Penny, and went for a grapple to take her out. But in doing so, Pyrrha couldn't get directly behind Penny, like some sort of fluctuating field was behind her, coming from her backpack. Wasting no time, Pyrrha ducked under the flurry of swords and a roundhouse kick from Penny, lifting her kicking leg up with both hands and toppling Penny. Pyrrha noted the distinct thud she made when she landed.

Taking the opportunity, Pyrrha ran for her spear, but on the way, she inexplicably got her foot caught in something, tripping her. Examining her ankle, she grabbed a hold of wire. Almost invisible wire. Upon Penny rising and summoning her blades back to her, Pyrrha was lifted into the air and flung across the arena.

_She's a puppeteer! How is she doing it!? _Then something clicked in Pyrrha's mind. A plan. But before she could execute it, Penny had a few tricks she needed to demonstrate.

Impaling the walls of the arena at the cardinal directions, Penny flew every which way, her feet not touching the ground, ping ponging Pyrrha with unbelievable punches. Her martial skill was no joke either. Pyrrha attempted to counter Penny only for the elbow to plow through her block, launching her. The crowd was in total disbelief as well. Ms. Nikos, the undefeated champion who had won every fight witnessed, now on the receiving end of a beat down of a 'first time' combatant, all while listening to the Atlas anthem. It felt almost blasphemous, and the crowd loved it.

Pyrrha's saving grace was her ability to face the attacks every single time, blocking with her shield, otherwise, she figured she might've died already.

However, Pyrrha felt inadequate. _I've never thought I'd fight an opponent like this... she is like steel and has the endurance of the sun. She hits like a train and has the speed of an arrow when she wants to. How do you defeat someone like her? Under normal circumstances, I don't have a finisher against abnormally strong opponents. Ruby can use incredible speed and the most powerful bullets around to deliver extreme strikes, Yang can get exponentially stronger and hit like a rocket, Jaune apparently has a family technique or something, Nora's semblance is to hit with extreme force, Weiss can alter her opponent with a variety of effects and supposedly has her own 'super mode', Ren can use aura as an explosive martial art, but what do I have? A sword, a spear, a rifle, a shield. Pitiful. Except... this isn't under normal circumstances. Time to finish this puppeteer..._

Penny dropped her heel over Pyrrha's head, planning to finish the fight.

_Mercury tried that, so did Ruby... you should've paid more attention to the previous fights..._

Pyrrha rolled underneath to behind Penny, the ground breaking into pieces where she just was. She jumped to her feet, and grabbed Penny's wires from behind, and thought _STOP!_.

And like that, using her semblance of polarity, Penny's swords and wires stopped. But what she didn't expect was that Penny too stopped completely. Penny and her wires and her swords all glowed black with Pyrrha's aura. The crowd went silent with confusion.

"Oh no..." Ruby whispered. Ruby was torn between Pyrrha and Penny, but she definitely didn't want Penny's robotic nature to be revealed, as Penny herself tried to keep it secret. Fortunately for Penny, only a select few people are aware of the nature of Pyrrha's semblance, and therefore couldn't make heads or tails of the situation.

_Why is she effected too? Why is she effected too!? WHY IS SHE EFFECTED TOO!? _Pyrrha thought to herself, but regardless of her internal conflict, commenced with her plan.

Pyrrha out stretched her arms far and wide, the swords extending full length from Penny, floating like soap bubbles around the arena. Then Pyrrha weaved with her hands, round and round her head, the swords following her hand movements, floating clockwise round Penny. Anyone watching the aura banners could see Pyrrha's aura levels dropping rapidly, enough that with time it could kill her. The swords sped up as Pyrrha built a rhythm, and the blades spiraled inward as the wires wrapped themselves around Penny, trapping her arms. Pyrrha's nose started to bleed from both nostrils.

_Under any other circumstance, I would've lost to someone like you... Your strings are your undoing Puppet-_

On the last several feet of wire for each blade, Pyrrha knotted them by hand to the wire adjacent, binding Penny completely. Pyrrha let off of her semblance, and started to cough up blood, then coughed to get air back into her lungs, then coughed to get air to her head.

"Oh dear, you do not seem to be well Ms. Nikos. Are you in need of assistance?" Penny inquired with the deepest of concern as she hobbled on her feet, completely helpless. She may be strong, but each revolution of a single wire around her added 1000 lbs. of force she needed to overcome to break free, and she was wrapped a hundred times plus.

"What...?" Pyrrha coughed, taken by surprise at the girls sincere worry. Pyrrha then felt terrible.

"I'm sorry" the champion said. She then slugged Penny in the dome with her shield, knocking her over. Penny still had almost all of her aura if her aura banner was to be believed, and was still fully conscious, but incapacitated by her own weapon. The announcers declared Pyrrha the victor for that reason. The crowd muttered to each other, confused as to what had just gone down in front of them, a spectacle incomparable to anything previously seen. 'Was that string, what was that black glow, is Pyrrha telekinetic, is Pyrrha actually a caster, is Penny a aura battery, what the hell did we just see?' is what the crowd said repeatedly to itself, searching for anyone who had answers, yet only two truly knew. Pyrrha and Ruby. And of course, Ironwood.

The crowd slowly clapped, figuring the only thing they did know was that Pyrrha had defeated her opponent. Once everyone became comfortable with the idea Pyrrha won, they started cheering too. Then she fainted.

-Later-

"Rise and shine misses undefeated!" she could hear Nora shout.

"Ya know, between the eight of us, we just wake up to the darndest things on a daily basis, don't we?" Pyrrha recognized the voice as Yang's.

"Wait! Hold on! I think she's actually waking up this time!" _Jaune?_

She opened her eyes to all of her friends. They were all wearing party hats and party whistles, and in their hands streamers went off randomly, filling the room with colorful confetti and string accompanied by noise makers and pops and party whistles and hoots and hollers.

"We won!" was shouted between the teenagers. Even Ruby, Weiss, and Ren were jumping up and down in celebration shouting in excitement.

"Whas going on?" Pyrrha lazily yawned, rubbing the sleep from her eyes and arching her back to stretch.

Jaune stopped his celebration to sit by Pyrrha's side and explained in laymen's terms.

"You were declared winner, you fell unconscious, next day, team RWBY represented Vale, SSSN, Mistral, and two other first year teams from other schools, team RWBY won, leaving Beacon ahead of the Mistral academy by one victory for the first years, next day, the festival started in the streets, and today, you woke up finally, and the festival is still going strong." He finished with a double pat on her thigh.

"You mean to say the tournament is done?" Pyrrha replied.

"Yep!" replied Jaune.

"Finally!" exclaimed Pyrrha, falling back into the mattress and closed her eyes.

-End Chapter 19-


	20. Chapter 20: St David's Day

**Merry Christmas! Happy Hanukah! Merry Kwanzaa! Happy any other possible holidays! And a happy new year! Here's my gift to you lovely people, and if you're interested, later today, I'll be posting my parallel fanfic staring Ms. Blake, and I'm excited to start writing from another POV! So cheers all around! Let the show begin!**

The shattered moon. Ruby stared at it.

The shattered moon glowed white in the black night, the luminescence dimming out the stars. For several hours, Ruby laid on her back in snow on top of a hill, wrapped up in her red fur lined hood, and she stared at the celebrity in the sky, knowing she had forgotten something. What though?

The moon eased her nerves, albeit why still mystified Ruby. The more she tried to remember, the harder it seemed to recall. It brought up memories of her practice fight with Jaune way back, where she thought something similar, the moon keeping her memories safe, even if she forgot them herself. Her efforts were for naught, at least until Yang, who laid in the snow beside her, spoke up.

"What time is it?"

Yang had taken it upon her self to spend some time with her sister, worried that recently she hadn't conversed with Ruby much. When Yang thought about it however, since loosing her eye, Ruby didn't talk at all unless it was with Jaune or a special occasion. It broke her heart knowing that since coming to Beacon, Ruby went from a chirpy girl with wide eyed ambitions to being a cold, dark, ruthless, blood thirsty fighter on any regular day. She never planned for the world to change Ruby so much ever, never mind so soon. The whole situation made Yang reconsider being a huntress daily, a sickening pit in her stomach developing every time Yang pondered the next possible way for her or Ruby to be traumatized so that their current person was killed and replaced with a soulless version, that is until they get killed for good. Even within the ordered chaos of the tournament Yang feared for their lives. The encounter with Jack alone could've killed Ruby or broken her had she killed him. Many worries roosted themselves within her mind, Ruby only being a fraction of it. Weiss and Blake hide things that obviously eat away at them too.

But for now, Yang let the snow numb her body before her naturally high temperature melted it away, and counted the minutes before St. David's Day celebration.

"Ruby? Time?" she turned her head to her right. Ruby laid transfixed by the moon. "Never mind."

_Time... time... what time can't I remember? _

Ruby realized slowly that she couldn't remember much, anything previous to meeting and training under Qrow being a blur to her. She had made fighting Grimm her life, never questioning the void of her childhood.

"Yang? What was Mom like?" she asked without thought.

Yang froze, metaphorically, for Ruby had never once asked her about Summer Rose. She had learned to accept that Ruby blocked most memories of their mother as a way of coping with her disappearance. The implications of Ruby's sudden interest scared Yang.

"Uhm..." she let out a deep breath. "She baked really good cookies..." Yang said, not wanting to open a can of worms that might result in a break down.

"Cookies..." Ruby repeated back in a trance.

_Who raised me? A woman who baked cookies? Makes sense. _

She looked at the shattered moon some more.

"Ya know, the moon looks like a crumbling cookie..." Yang said.

She continued to look at the crumbling moon, then with no warning, images of a kitchen flashed in her mind. Kind silver eyes looked down at her, a white hand lowering down a cookie into Ruby's tiny palms. The cookie crumbled. Then the flashes were over. Ruby could feel how cold she was once again, her breathing erratic when the chillness of the air filled her lungs.

She stood up, brushing the cold white snow off of her cloak and checked the time. Six twenty pm. She grabbed Crescent Rose.

"Come on, lets go. The party's going to start in an hour." Ruby said, trying hard to catch her breath. Yang jolted up.

_There has to be more to it than just a crumbled cookie! My childhood had more than that! It had too! What else does the moon mean!_

Ruby felt anger for she knew that her comfortable mindlessness had been destroyed by a tease of a memory, and just that, a tease. Ruby knows she is in for many nights spent losing sleep trying to find answers that she simply won't find.

She looked towards the city, the flickering lights in the distance stood out among the black forest surrounding it, and begun walking down the hill, following cavities in the snow where Grimm had long dissipated from to trace their steps back.

-Elsewhere-

Jaune sat on the counter in the busy kitchen inside the lively Bargain Buffet they had once visited on Ruby's 'Best Day Ever' escapade, reading the news headlines from his scroll over the sounds of sizzling pans, running mixers, and laughing children while waiting for his seasoned roast beef and glazed ham to finish cooking. For their St. David's Day celebration, the three teams of teenagers decided to have their party at the Bargain Buffet in Vale, feasting away the night along with other families and groups that shared the same idea. Following food would then be opening gifts around a blazing brazier outside, of which everyone had already placed their gifts. But first, Jaune, Ren, and Sage had to cook a feast up for their companions. Nora was there too, but she ran around the restaurant playing with children who were there with their parents.

The place hadn't changed since the last time they visited. The walls were still red brick with hard wood tables lining them, carpeted flooring, and a slightly raised platform in the middle of the building where the kitchen of white tile and stainless steel cooking utensils, pots and pans, stoves and ovens, and light tan wooden counter tops were, open to whoever could cook and were willing to pay for materials.

His head lifted up for the first time in minutes, "Listen to this guys!" Ren diverted his attention from his steaming yellow chicken curry to listen while Sage closed the oven on his lasagna, ready to listen.

_ "Andrew Geld, 46,_ _a CEO of the massive food delivery and production company, TRUSTWILL, was found dead by his wife just an hour ago in the confines of his home located in the High Rise. On scene evidence strongly suggest his throat was slit while he was reading, killing him. His son, Danny Geld, 12, has given a rudimentary description of the prime suspect, saying he say them briefly while playing hide and seek. Police are currently _blah blah blah, yeah! That sucks!" Jaune exclaimed, tapping on his scroll to return to the news home paige.

"Getting killed on St. David's Day is possibly one of the worst ways to go out..." Sage said turning his head back and forth slowly in disdain.

"Imagine how his family feels" Ren thought out loud, scrapping the chicken curry into a large bowl.

"_Hey kids! Happy St. David's Day! Your dads dead!_ Terrible..." Jaune finished. He slid off the counter to stand up, slipping on oven mitts. Mixing batter for carrot cake, a middle aged blonde woman joined the conversation, obviously a little upset.

She put a hand to her cheek and said "Mr. Geld? Oh that's terrible! He was such a sweet man..."

Sage threw away some burnt pastries he tried to make, putting them in the trash right with Jaune's goose that dried out and burned. "Yeah? What he'd do?" he asked with sincere curiosity.

"A decade and a half back, Trustwill farms were being attacked by Grimm, causing a shortage in food, and supply lines were being cut leaving some villages lacking. I remember it well, the military dealt with a portion of the problem, but people were still dying and going hungry" the woman said.

"Geld was new as a CEO, and with Ozpin, they figured out a solution that worked out well" Ren continued, cutting up apples for his pie.

"Ozpin?" Jaune replied. He was pleased with how this batch of meat came out.

"Yeah, Ozpin and Geld were buddies. They figured if the fourth years at Beacon trained outside of the school, Grimm could be kept under control" Ren answered.

The woman laughed. "I remember how my nephew was so excited to leave the walls of Beacon for the first time in years. He was one of the first students to go..."

Sage said "You know, I was wondering where all the fourth year Beacon students were when I first got here..." as he started a new batch of pastries.

"Yep, it's because of him. He also pays for about ten students admissions worth every year for Beacon to bring the entry fee down. That's how me and Nora could afford to get in with help of scholarships from combat schools. Geld was a good man" a sniffle made its way from Ren. Ren dumped his sliced apples into his readied pies, shoving it into the oven and setting his timer.

Jaune let a moment pass before changing the subject, "So Sage, tomorrow you guys leave with the rest of the crew, right?" He pulled his boiled sweet potatoes out of the stove top pot, skinning them one by one.

"Hm-hmph. From what I can tell, Sun is torn up about it, you know, what with Blake and him, you know..." Sage trailed off, whisking away at his gingerbread batter.

"Oh! So your not from around here?" the lady asked.

"No, I'm from Mistral-"

"-Wait what about Sun and Blake?" Jaune asked excitedly. He didn't feel it was right to gossip, but curiosity got the better of him.

"-So your here for the tournament then?" she said as she patted her young son's back, prompting him to run out of the kitchen and jump into Nora's arms, who then spun around with make shift effects.

"Yeah, I didn't do too well though..." Sage said.

"What about Sun and Blake?" Jaune was now mashing his potatoes with glee.

Ren interjected calmly while grabbing a large salad bowl, "Your team was the best from Mistral's first years, don't beat yourself up too much."

"Really! Wow!" the lady exclaimed.

"-Sage, what about Sun?!"

"Well, my team leader made it to the end, but I fell out much sooner. There were two other students who were really good that were from Mistral..." Sage corrected Ren, thinking back to Mercury and Emerald, two students he had never encountered while in Mistral.

"-Sage! What about Sun and Blake?! Are they, like, going out now?"

"Wouldn't be surprised..." Ren grunted as he struggled to open a marinated artichoke heart jar.

Hesitantly, he said "I- I think... they sure do spend enough time together..." Sage poured out his gingerbread batter out into a pan, putting it in with Ren's apple pies.

"You think they're- do you think they're, ya know...?" Jaune almost blurted out his question before remembering their company, plus being in public with a fairly loud conversation.

A portly man showed Ren a trick to open stubborn jars, first warming the lid under hot water followed by tapping the edge with a butter knife to dent the seal. Thanking the man, Ren chuckled. "I don't think Blake is the kind to open up that quickly to someone."

"You'd be surprised kiddos" the woman laughed. Leaning forward onto the counter, she said with a grin, "Just like you boys, say the right things, do the right stunts, and under the right circumstance, a girl can melt into someones hands. Ha! It's what happened to my sister..." she looked over her shoulder to another middle aged woman on the other side of the kitchen, and stuck her tongue out at her. The other woman laughed and turned back around laughing.

In that moment, Scarlet walked in all wrapped up in his white poncho, carrying several bottles of champagne. Sage saw and greeted him as team SSSN did so normally.

Throwing his arms out wide, "(H)EYYYYYYYYYYYYY!"

"'ey. Am I too soon?" he asked.

"Just a little early, it's fine" answered Jaune. "Go ahead and put those in the ice bins by that table." He turned back to Sage and continued, "What about Weiss and Neptune? I mean, they've spent sometime hanging out by now..."

"I don't know. He doesn't talk about it. She doesn't talk, not to me at least. I don't really see her ever, so I wouldn't be the one to know."

Ren mixed his salad of sliced salami, artichoke hearts, olives, tomatoes, olive oil and vinegar and called it finished. He turned to Jaune with one hand leaning on the counter, "We shouldn't be jealous Jaune. Are we Jealous, Jaune?" he said coy-like.

Jaune gave Ren the finger with a smile, then went back to adding brown sugar, butter, nutmeg, and maple syrup to his mashed sweet potatoes.

"If you really want her, you could just kill the competition" the lady teased, opening a bottle of beer.

"Ha, yeah, I don't think I'm allowed to chase girls around..." Jaune admitted.

Ren leaned in towards the lady and whispered loudly so Jaune could hear, "If he was found to be chasing this one around, a certain friend of ours _would_ kill her competition..." The lady covered her mouth and chuckled.

Putting his potatoes into his oven, Jaune leaned back on the counter and teased Ren back, "Well well, aren't we talkative today. Usually you never say a word, Mr. Chatterbox..."

As he said this, Nora was passing around the outside of the kitchen, overheard, and hopped onto the counter next to Jaune.

With signs of frustrations, she said "Yeah, you know what? I only had to force feed him three shots of whisky before coming here and he's still basically normal..." She scooted off the counter and continued to tickle the swarm of kids running around her legs.

"I'm not complaining to be honest, I just never thought I'd hear him say more than three words in one go." Jaune went back to reading his news headlines.

"It's the same with Scarlet most of the time." Sage, Ren, and Jaune all were waiting for their food to cook at this point, and had undivided attention.

"Wait, what about me?" Scarlet asked as he walked into the kitchen.

"Oh nothing" replied Ren smugly, leaning back comfortably onto the counter.

"Ah mannnn! Clint Westwood died last week!" Jaune cried out.

"What!? No! He had at least another five years in him though!" retorted Scarlet.

"Wait, which one was he?" Ren asked.

"He was the one from _Dirty Barry_. I don't know, I think he had a good run, he was pretty old after all" the woman said.

"Wait, you mean the guy from _Million Lien Baby_?" She nodded yes. "Oh, well... yeah. He was pretty old, it's not too surprising."

"Yeah... heart attack apparently." Jaune broke out into uncontrolled laughter after reading the next news article, falling to his knees, prompting the questioning of all of his friends. Seconds later, Pyrrha walked in through the doors, hanging up the red cloak Jaune gave her.

"Oh, it's the misses" whispered Ren to the lady.

"Oh, wow, why would he look anywhere else?" she whispered back, noticing Pyrrha's beauty.

"Jaune? Heh, What's so funny?" Pyrrha chuckled. Jaune's laughing was becoming contagious.

Standing up with great effort, Jaune began to read the news article.

"_With this year's Vytal Festival coming to an end, it's best we reflect on what we've seen. It's been a great year and _blah blah blah here we go, _As always, the tournaments held between the four kingdoms head combat schools didn't disappoint. This year, our hearts were stolen by several very noticeable individuals, namely, a third year from Vale, a certain Ms. Coco who pops into mind who stole the spot light by far, but wasn't the only one. Second year from _blah blah blah, ok, listen to this! _Sun Wukong from Mistral has been voted in first place of popularity if by going by the female polling regardless of his status as a faunus, the common response from fans when questioned being "ABS!" Being a woman myself, I can see where they're coming from, and upon his defeat on the fourth day, I too was greatly saddened. The clothing companies have picked up on Mr. Wukong's popularity and have begun making a fashion line based off of his, and have made St. David's Day accessories with his face on them. So far, they've been successful in their sales..."_

"-Stop! We've heard enough!" Sage laughed out loud, smashing the counter in his fit. "Screw that guy!"

Scarlet hid his face and covered his mouth, not letting the others see or hear him break down into frustrated laughter.

"Abs..." Ren chuckled, "It's all it takes..."

"Hell yeah!" the lady shouted, "I saw that Wukong's fight, and he's some tasty eye candy."

Hardly being able to breath through his laughter, Jaune said 'look!' and flashed his scroll for everyone to see. On the screen were keychains and long pillows with Sun printed onto them.

"I'll be back..." Scarlet said with a determined face, and left the restaurant, grabbing his white poncho on his way out. The others spent several minutes recovering from their fits of laughter before Neptune and Weiss walked in, both wearing little in the way of winter clothing.

"'EYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!" Sage greeted Neptune while holding his sides.

"'EYYYYYYYYYYY!" Neptune yelled back, albeit it seemed more forced than usual. "Are you guys okay?" he asked, seeing all of them hunched over and their red faces, especially Pyrrha's, Pyrrha almost crying.

"Show him!" Sage giggled out.

Neptune and Weiss dodged Nora as she ran by with at least twenty toddlers following behind her, and stepped onto the kitchen platform. Jaune held out his scroll, showing them the long pillow with Sun printed onto it.

In pleasant disbelief, Neptune whispered slowly "What the hell?"

"Your fearless leader is now the new Brad Pidd, behold your new sex god!" Jaune smugly said.

Weiss fluttered her hands and tiptoed, and in her most innocent voice, she went along with it, "Gasp! Mister Mister! Do you think I'll be able to get his autograph when he gets here? Do you think he'll even notice me?!" She handed her bag of ice cream to Ren to put in the freezer, almost handing it to Nora before realizing how bad of an idea it was.

"I don't know sweat heart, a girl already caught his fancy it seems..." Jaune lowered his head to imply what everyone already figured.

Weiss dropped the high pitched act and went for a casual, matter of fact tone, "Hmmm, yep, I know what you're talking about. She's a real piece of work that one..." she nodded her head up and down.

"Yep. You're just going to have to kill her..." he nodded his head up and down.

"Yep. I guess so..." she continued nodding.

"Yep..." he continued nodding.

"Yep..." she continued nodding.

"Yep..." Nora nodded, holding up three kids on each arm, two on each leg, two on her back, and one around her head.

"Sup, bitches!" shouted Coco with gusto, not being able to have less cares about profanity in front of children. The children however, let go of Nora all at once to go play with Velvet and her rabbit ears, Velvet who arrived just then with Coco and Yatsuhashi, Fox not present.

"Velvet, you came!" Weiss replied with sincere excitement.

"You know, I can't believe they banned you two from using your weapons in the tournament..." Jaune commented.

Coco and Yatsuhashi made their way to the kitchen platform, Jaune flashing the picture of the Sun pillow at them.

"I know! It pisses me off! They first said I couldn't use mine, but decided I could use it on the fourth day, then after seeing the damage it caused, they forced me to sign a contract saying I couldn't bring my purse within or around the colosseum when there are people inside of it. By the way, you should've seen the pillows they made of me last year..." she laughed and tilted her glasses. "Lets just say some folks had to pay for new fingers."

Neptune gulped loudly.

Coco turned her attention to the blue haired boy standing next to her, still tilting her glasses. "My my, whose this fine piece?" She wrapped her arms around Neptune neck, pulling him close, whispering "Why don't we ditch this place and... find somewhere quiet?"

Going through the list, Ren, Nora, Jaune, Pyrrha, Sage, the blonde lady, and Yatsuhashi stifled their laughter, being able to visibly see the sweat build on Neptune's forehead. Velvet was too busy playing with the kids. Weiss was waiting for Neptune to react.

"Yeah uhm, uh, yeah, uh, yeah uh no, no, no... I uh, I uh I'm with Weiss, yeah, I'm with Weiss..." he said, pulling away from Coco so his fifth member wouldn't bump into Coco, and pulling Weiss into a one armed hug.

"Shame." She turned away from Neptune, managing to flash Weiss a wink before sitting down at the largest table in the restaurant. Weiss appreciated the act Coco put on, surprised Coco was the considerate type. Or was she?

Ren pulled out his apple pies, the smell capturing everyone's attention.

"Wow! That smells wonderful!" Pyrrha was the first to say. "You haven't messed up your food, have you Jaune?" she grinned.

"Shut up, the goose was actually a agent sent to mess up my cooking" Jaune jested back.

"Oh? You messed up our most important feast this year?" Weiss asked, reaching for her rapier slowly.

"Uh no, Ren did it..." Jaune avoided all eye contact. "Did you see my ham though, or my roast? Those came out beautifully!" He jumped off the counter, put his mitts back on, and pulled out his mashed sweet potatoes.

"I guess we can forgive and forget, after all, 'tis the season to jovial" Weiss sighed, walking over to the table Coco chose to sit at, and taking her own seat.

Soon after, Sage pulled out his lasagna, and used cookie cutters to shape his gingerbread like little shields and flames, the feast being finished and laid out onto the large table Weiss and Coco sat at. Blake, Scarlet, and Sun walked in, just in time to find seats. All around the restaurant, families filled the tables, laying out food, chattering about all the different things in the world, and the four teams of huntsmen and huntresses doing the same. Just one thing was missing. Ruby and Yang.

The food was ready, the apple pies, Ren's salad, Jaune's mashed sweet potatoes, Sage's gingerbread pastries, lasagna, Ren's yellow chicken curry, and a plethora of meat, several glazed hams and a couple seasoned roast beefs that were still red in the middle, and everyone had a glass filled with champagne. Everyone decided to pass the time by talking, figuring they could wait a few more minutes before digging in. Much to their relief, Ruby and Yang made it before they started eating, but both girls seemed... off. The conversations stopped at their table, the smell of sulfur emanating from the two newcomers, Ruby holding her Crescent Rose as if waiting for a fight, and seeming to have come from one.

"Is... everything all right?" inquired Velvet.

Ruby stood there blankly for a few seconds, dropping her weapon by the door, seeming in a trance, before she nonchalantly itched her face.

"Yeah, lets eat!" She smiled, pulling up one of two chairs left, the one closest to the kitchen and next to Jaune, Yang sitting next to Ruby and Blake.

The party of 15 wasted no time in tearing apart the feast set before them, everyone taking a little in the way of sides, leaving none behind, but mostly just grabbed handfuls of meat and slapped it onto their plates... with tongs of course, bad manners being frowned upon. They could all enjoy vegetables and sugar and whatnot, but being huntsmen and huntresses in training, meat and any extra protein they could get would, was, and is consumed on sight, no exception. Even Weiss scarfed down three quarters of a pound in meat alone.

With Coco having her back to the window, going clockwise, the seating is as follows; Velvet, Weiss, Neptune, Ren, Nora, Pyrrha, Jaune, Ruby, Yang, Blake, Sun, Scarlet, Sage, Yatsuhashi, and back to Coco. Upon finishing their food and consuming several glasses of champagne, Yang blurted out, "Now Jaune?!" to which he replied "Yep!" pulling a guitar from behind his seat, Ren pulling a harmonica from his pocket, Weiss, Yang, and Nora all standing up, clearing their throats. Jaune put on foot on top of the table, knocking aside some empty plates, and put the other foot on his seat, taking a dominating captain like stance.

He plucked the guitar strings for a few seconds to make sure they weren't totally wrong, and began playing. Ren followed in with the harmonica, followed by the three girls, Weiss working the high notes, Nora working the middle, and Yang covering the low notes, and between them all, they filled in where ever they could. It was by no means meant to be perfect, it was meant to make everyone laugh and join in. To up the ante, Jaune danced on top of the table, making a sure fool of himself, Ren soon joining him, and the three girls working their own interpretive dance in front of the table.

"Dum da-da-dum Dum da-da-dum Dum da-da-dum Da da-da-dum-da-da-da-da-da-da-dum" they vocalized, soon the entire restaurant joining in, da da dumming the rhythm to death, all having a good St. David's Day time, singing the melody that David the Way Farer hummed to his children every winter when they got cold and hungry, the song being hummed to him by his parents when he was hungry and cold, and so on. The song they all knew was in a different time called _The Carol of the Bells_, but in this time, they knew it as 'that one song'.

Their bellies full and spirits high, the building full of people gathered their warm clothing and headed out into the market square just outside the doors. There in the market square, under the shattered moon and silent snow sprinkling down upon them giving the town a shaken snow globe feeling, a brass basin filled with oil, ten feet in diameter lit with a brilliant flame adorning all of it's children gathering round to share it's warmth with gold and yellow light, sat in the middle of the square, wrapped presents sitting in a ring around the fire on top of temporary benches placed just outside of the range of the fire's overwhelming heat. The presents were mixed in with the presents of strangers and other denizens of the community, part of the fun of St. David's Day being the walk around the fire finding your's and your friend's presents. It was a joyous feeling St. David's Day had, a collection of people getting together, laughing and calling out to each other, enveloping themselves in the care and love they truly share for each other.

"Whats that I see? Right there? Is that for Blake?" Scarlet pointed, failing in holding back his grin.

Blake laughed, skipping over to where Scarlet pointed, picking up a long package with straight red wrapping and a tag with Blake's name on it. Opening it up, Blake keeled over laughing, finding a long pillow with Sun printed onto it. Sun started punching Scarlet in his bashfulness, Scarlet quite pleased with himself. The other huntresses and huntsmen in training applauded Scarlets effort, patting him on the back before breaking off into pairs to search for their presents.

Jaune found a thin present from Ren in between the legs of two benches, ripping off the wrapping paper, crumpling the green paper up, and throwing it into the basin, adding to the fuel of the fire. Ren had given him a new pair of gloves that outmatched his current gloves by a large margin. Instead of the cheap workman's gloves with the fingertips worn off and the sheet metal studded on that Jaune had grabbed last second when he ran away from home, Ren had managed to find a pair of kangaroo hide leather gloves, doubled stitched, intentionally fingerless with matching steel plates riveted in, and all matching in color and style to his old gloves, just better. A note inside the left glove read _I know you'll put these to good use, -Ren_.

From Nora, Jaune got a music book and several new release movies he had been wanting to see, and to his surprise, he got a bottle of cologne from Neptune.

"Cologne?" Pyrrha laughed.

"I guess..." Jaune smiled, quickly looking around. He spotted Neptune who was apparently watching him, waiting for a reaction. Jaune raised his arm into the air and gave him a thumbs up, Neptune returning the gesture.

Jaune grabbed a free burlap sack from a pile of bags, and placed his gifts in, throwing the bag over his shoulder.

"Hey!" she laughed, "Don't leave yet Jaune! You still have to find my gift!" Pyrrha nudged him back towards the fire.

"Don't worry, I'm just getting ready for more!" Jaune replied.

"Hell yeah!" they heard Yang shout from across the ways. She had it seemed opened a gift to find top brand sun glasses that screamed 'sass, rebel, and class', qualities she always wanted to emulate. Weaving their way around people from the restaurant and the neighborhood, Pyrrha found her gift from Ren and Nora which was her own electric tea kettle, complete with amber tea packets and honey. She too grabbed a burlap sack. Soon after, Weiss pointed her in the right direction and found Weiss' white wrapped gift. Pyrrha put the chess set in her bag, quite content with the haul so far.

Velvet called to Jaune, leading him to a small wooden crate with a pry bar on top and a tag reading _to Jaune, from Ruby_, piquing the interest of several of their friends as to the peculiar 'wrapping' job Ruby did. Prying open the crate, Jaune pulled out a pair of shin armor plating, white and angular matching the style of his regular armor, while providing more protection by covering the entire length from his ankle to his knee, front and back. Examining them, Jaune became eager to try them on, but knew he had to exercise restraint and wait for a better time.

Nora whistled, "Thats cool!"

Jaune had to agree, surprised he'd forgotten that Ruby had in fact built Crescent Rose by herself, meaning that she could probably easily remake his armor and add onto it, although how she got his measurements was a mystery unto itself. Looking around, he spotted Ruby a quarter round the ring of benches, and shouted out "I love them Ruby!" startling her. She smiled briefly before blushing, turning around, and hiding behind Yang from what Jaune could tell.

Walking around the bench ring a couple more times, the number of presents thinning out, Jaune found a decently sized box addressed to him from Pyrrha, prompting Pyrrha to start giggling with her hands to her cheeks, twisting back and forth on her tippy toes in delight. Tearing off the wrapping and once again crumpling it up and tossing it into the brazier to feed the flame, Jaune pulled out a black leather guitar case from the bigger cardboard box.

"No way... is it...?" Jaune started, his eyes flickering between the case and Pyrrha.

She fluttered her hand towards the box, directing him to open, using all of her will to keep her glee contained. Jaune opened up the guitar case, and found inside a dark red wood _Stradivarius_ brand guitar. He couldn't believe it. _Stradivarius _made some of the best instruments around, and therefore, put a hefty price tag on them. They weren't impossible to buy, any middle class person could buy one with some effort, but they still were worth five plus months of minimum wage pay before tax, more than Jaune ever had for sure. He had heard his sister play with one before when he was younger, and the sound like gold it produced enticed Jaune to learn how to play in the first place.

"How...?" Jaune laughed out, not finding the words to thank the girl in Red.

She bashfully admitted, "Winning the Mistral Tournament four years in a row added up to just enough apparently-" She was interrupted by Jaune's hug. He wished Ruby was there, so he could hug her too, but Ruby seemed a little scarce. He didn't know if Pyrrha or Ruby fully understood his appreciation like he of course did. His whole life, he had always been given hand-me-downs or borrowed from others, nothing ever really belonging to him. His clothes from his older sisters, bits of his armor from his father, Crocea Mors from his lineage, his wallet from a garbage can, his scroll from his oldest sister, never actually owning his own guitar but borrowing whenever he wanted to play or practice, and so on. Never owning something that he could call his frustrated him to no end at times, and even with lien, he had nothing he really needed to buy that he could afford other than food. But now that changed. His armor from Ruby, his own equipment for fighting things that go bump in the night, and Pyrrha's guitar, his own tool to pass his downtime soothing his nerves and his friends if they allowed him to, were game changers.

"Thank you!" he exclaimed, hugging Pyrrha tightly. She didn't want to stop Jaune, but she had her own list of priorities.

"Well Jaune, now I have to find my gift from you..." she pried away, turning slowly to continue her travels around the crowded benches.

"Your not going to find your gift" he said, successfully stowing away his smile. His poker face was true.

She turned back around, confused as to his meaning. "Oh?" she raised an eyebrow.

"It's not there."

Pyrrha started to worry, _did Jaune not actually get me a gift? No..._ she doubted that Jaune would do that, but then felt greedy, thinking that she was entitled to something from Jaune. She waited patiently for Jaune to continue.

Smiling, "It's in my pants..." he said confidently.

Pyrrha blushed fluorescent red. "Wha-wha!? Thats really forward Jaune! I don't know if I'm-" she backed away a little.

He pulled out a small, flat, yellow present from his pant pocket, "I mean from my pocket! Sorry..." embarrassed by his lack of planning in his word choice.

She stepped forward and took the small present, curious as to what it could be. Opening it up, Pyrrha held in her hand a simple loose pamphlet of tasks Jaune would do if she turned in that slip of paper with that task written on it. She laughed.

"Ha ha ha, Juaaannnnnne..." she said. She might've of been disappointed if it wasn't for the fact that Jaune had already gotten her the cloak with the matching clasp, but instead found his gift rather sweet, and kinda adorable. She flipped through the short collection of tasks, chuckling at the child like innocence of the things he wrote in with pencil. _Foot massage, cleaning your weapon, cleaning our dorm, making breakfast, doing my homework, vacuuming the hallway, one free kiss..._

"Oh!" She stopped. Her eyes widened and she started sweating. She re-read it, blink a few times, re-read it again, looked at Jaune who was scratching his stubble and avoiding eye contact, clearing his throat, then slapped the papers together to imitate shutting close a book, and stuffed it into her burlap sack.

"Um, oh, uh, well, oh," she cleared her throat, "uh, ok, uhm, yeah, I'm going to, uh, look around some more, yeah..." she strutted away, flustered.

_Great going Jaune._ In all honesty, Jaune couldn't figure out what to get Pyrrha that held any meaning, Pyrrha seeming to have everything she needed already, thus anything he got her would be just too much. _Armor? She already has that! Bullets? Weapons? Covered already! Clothes? I got her the cloak, and her style of fighting doesn't allow much more restriction after that! Anything else? She doesn't really covet material things like most people, so she needs something that goes beyond money. How do you buy for someone who has everything they need?_ A confession disguised as an elementary school free chore ticket book gimmick, as cowardly and cheap as it made Jaune feel, was the only thing he could think of with any meaning. He just regrets not planning how the scene would play out at all. He thought maybe that she would take the book and read it later, or just skim it now and discover the last page later, he didn't plan for her to find it right there on the spot. He scared her off.

He walked away from the brazier and the benches, leaving the circle of light towards the street curb corner closest to Beacon. He looked up and gazed at the Emerald tower of Ozpin, wondering if he should just leave now, and saunter back to his dorm alone. A tear started to form in his eye, Jaune feeling ashamed of himself. He wiped it away, but it came back shortly after.

He took his first step off the curb, placing his foot into some snow that had been shoved off the road, but before sinking all the way down, he was pulled back by the arm. He was turned around and faced with Pyrrha. She stuffed a little slip of paper down Jaune's hoody, wrapped her arms and crimson cloak around Jaune's shoulders, and pulled him in, closing her eyes.

They kissed for eleven seconds to be exact, but time didn't exist to either one of them, each being lost in a swarm of peace, their minds engulfed with thoughts of the other, the soft feel of her lips against his chapped lips somehow producing a feeling so intimate, so pure, so intoxicating, they couldn't describe it if their life's depended on it.

-End Chapter 20-


	21. Chapter 21: Gifts

Ruby was done. She was tired of thinking about her mother, Jaune, the occasional image of Jack's mutilated body, the moon, everything that had crossed her mind in the past day, everything. She entered her warm dorm room alone, all of her friends off doing something or another elsewhere, and decided to just relax and not think for a change.

She kicked off her boots by her bed, then threw her sack onto her sheets of her precarious and tilted bunk bed. Walking around Weiss' bed to the cardboard boxes next to Weiss' white travel cases for her dust, Ruby rummaged through some spare sets of clothing and school supplies before finding her red pair of headphones with her music player. She threw those up too unto her bed.

She took a five minute shower to warm up a little more and clean off the sweat she worked up in the bargain buffet earlier, then dressed for bed. Climbing into bed, she scooted all of her stuff to the base of her bed, then put on her head phones and pressed play, 'This Will be the Day' being the first on her playlist.

Sitting up, she pulled her burlap sack of St. David's Day presents close, and started off with Blake's gift to her. She had not done the regular thing earlier during St. David's Day by taking off the wrapping and throwing it into the fire, but much to Yang's disappointment, grabbed her presents then left, not feeling too festive.

Stuffing the wrapping into the burlap sack, she examined the cover of the book Blake got her, a silver wolf walking through the white snow of a dead forest, leading a ragged looking boy behind it. It was called _The Wolf and her boy_, and based off the summary on the back, it's about a wolf and a boy she ends up taking care of traveling to a kingdom where everything is supposed to be better. She dropped the book a few inches from the book shelf to her left, planning to read it later. She looked once more at the cover as the book laid on the ground and was reminded of Zwei, saddened by having had to ship him back to Taiyang immediately after the breach of Vale.

Pushing thoughts out of her head, she pulled out the next gift, this one being Weiss'. She heard footsteps outside her door, hopeful that maybe she would have some company for the night, but they past by her door, belonging to some other dorm room elsewhere in the hallway. She then reflected on her priorities and came to the conclusion that she actually preferred the peace and quiet for the moment. Again she stuffed the wrapping garbage into her sack, and gawked at her gift. It was a long, slim black dress with red high lights at the bottom and around the left side, very mature and subtle but... rebellious in a way, the red making a statement and all. A obligatory corset set up in the back added a very Ruby-esque feel to it, brick colored string and all. Long black gloves came with it, fitting Ruby well enough, Weiss using her own hand as a measurement probably. A note inside read _I know how you feel about high heels, so I figured I should leave out the shoes and let you wear your boots with it. -Weiss. _Ruby rather liked it, and even had to resist the urge to fantasize about dressing up in it and taking Jaune out for a bite to eat, the look on his face when she would strut towards him, what'd he say, his taking her hand and kissing it like a gentleman...

She stopped herself, and threw her dress and gloves into one of the open cardboard boxes resting against her wall, and moved on. Nora got her a baker's dozen of cookies, some with oatmeal, some with chocolate, some with nuts, one with coconut, one with all. They smelled really good, but Ruby didn't want to brush her teeth again that night. Ruby dropped the box onto the book shelf ledge in front of the stitched red curtain to their room with a note that said _Do not eat_. Ren got her a... puzzle. Ruby examined it, unfamiliar with what exactly the point of it was. It was a hand held cube with a different color on every face, and seemed to be made up of smaller cubes that could move one row or column at a time. After twisting the cube up a little, Ruby couldn't get the cube to be the right color on every face, thus figuring out the goal of the puzzle. She chuckled. Without realizing it, after opening just a few presents, Ruby found herself to be having a pleasant time, relaxing, enjoying the sentiments of her friends, comprehending the fact that she has friends, friends that care enough about her to spend their precious money on her, friends that put thought into what they got her, friends that made sure she felt not left out...

She felt... really happy, happy and warm.

She dropped the cube which had a label on the white face center piece reading _Rainbow Cube_ down onto the bookshelf ledge on top of Nora's cookies. Pyrrha's gift was a decently dense pouch, and upon zipping it open, Ruby gasped to see a Atlas army knife complete with an adjustable wrench, adjustable inverted wrench, a flathead screwdriver, a crosshead screwdriver, can opener, corkscrew, magnifying glass, knife, saw blade, file, and a key chain. Along side it was a micrometer, flint and steel, and a professional pick lock set. Ruby didn't know how Pyrrha got her hands on a military grade special ops pocket kit, but she knew she would have to carry it on her from this point on somewhere on her belt, or maybe inside her boot. She put the small pouch underneath her pillow once she finished admiring the polished vanadium and nickel finish on the micrometer, then switched her music from the rather foreboding 'I May Fall' to the softer 'Wings'.

She pulled out Jaune's gift, another rather dense package. Crumpling the paper and getting rid of it, she unraveled the soft, silky, elastic cloths and separated them from the fat clip with the dark gray bullets. Feeling the first cloth, the black one, Ruby spotted the scroll number and immediately recognized the starting two digits belonging to a ammo manufacturer, and figured the second set of numbers and letters must of been the request code for the ammo should she call them using the number she was given. Fiddling with the cloth some more, Ruby realized that both were head bands and smiled.

She pulled off her eye patch, deep groves left where the string dug into her skin and the solid portion of the patch itself leaving a ring around the concave of her right eye. She couldn't see the marks of course, but she could feel them just fine. Ruby took the black silk and fitted it on, the stitched in codes on the inside, and giggled to herself at the amazing feeling of the soft fabric on her skin. Rolling over, she rubbed her face into her bed several times to feel the smoothness of the fabric, relishing the lack of eye patch which would always get in the way of her sleep patterns.

Satisfied, she sat back up and grabbed a couple weapon's weekly digest magazines, scanning for any clue on the ammo. The clip she got from Jaune had an arrow detail on it, and the bullets, which didn't look too special but weighed a ton, had a warning on the casing unlike any ammo she had every bought. The warning read something about extreme force, but what fascinated Ruby most was the company name on the rim of the casing.

'Excalibur' was the company, 'Majestic Custom' was their name for her caliber.

Ruby thumbed through her magazines, searching for something on the ammo. Quickly finding it, Ruby squealed upon learning that Jaune had gifted her the best in hand held ammo, A-MAGs, Anti-Matter Anti-Grimm. She spent several minutes reading reviews on the rounds, laughing at the honesty they put into their advertising.

"I broke my arm firing one round... the round went through my target, the wall, my car, and blew up the tree that finally stopped it... if you are not an experienced aura user, DO NOT FIRE!" is how the reviews read, basically advertising not to use them.

Ruby threw her red head band into the box with her new dress and put her A-MAGs under her pillow. She was about to throw her burlap sack of wrapping off her bed when something occurred to her. Where was Yang's gift? Digging through the garbage, Ruby panicked, unable to find what Yang got her, and only realized after a couple minutes that Yang's gift was right in her lap. Curious, Ruby opened the small, thin present, finding a single photo.

The photo was of a young Ruby, smiling and many teeth missing, hugging a young Yang, her hair still dirty blonde and not golden, a more proper Taiyang, his present day blonde beard not present, and hugging both little girls was Summer Rose, fair skin, long black hair with dark red streaks, a gentle loving smile, and most of all, silver eyes.

Memories of the photo flooded Ruby's mind, the four of them taking a picture together, Uncle Qrow being the one with the camera, the diner they had together, things they said, games they played, all overwhelmed Ruby. One thing she couldn't remember at all however, much to her distress, was her mother's voice. She couldn't remember it. But she now at least knew what she looked like.

Ruby held her knees to her chest and put her head down, rocking back and forth, crying from her one eye. She didn't know how she felt, her feelings conflicted, the tears seeming almost spontaneous, but she knew she felt alot of something, the tears soaking into her pajamas fairly quickly. She continued this until she fell asleep, still wrapped around the photo.

-Elsewhere-

Down in the industrial district of Vale south of the river, a certain Roman Torchwick had been handed over to the Vale prison system from the Atlas military custody his was in. He had told them everything, everything they wanted to hear, so they figured it was safe to stow away the criminal. He had told them that he was the one who planned all of the White Fang's recent activities including the Breach of Vale, he was the one who took initiative to steal all of the dust to supply the White Fang, and he was the one who thieved the Atlesian Paladins from the military. All lies of course.

Roman sat in his cell in solitary confinement down below ground level, feeling rather bummed on this joyous night of St. David's Day to spend it in a dark damp cell. His ears however perked up when the thrilling sounds of gunfire and screams made their way to his cell. He waited patiently until finally the sounds stopped, and someone whistled just outside his solid steel door. Scooting over to stand back to the side wall, a bolt the size of rebar shot and tore through the lock of the door and impaled the wall above just above his bed. The door was kicked in to reveal a stocky figure, about six foot, who carried a monstrous crossbow with cam springs that suggest a string draw weight requiring inhuman strength to pull. The figure stepped aside and allowed Roman exit from his cell, to which Roman thanked him politely as he stepped out.

"Happy St. David's Day sir, we hope you like your gift" the figure said.

He looked up and down the hall, first admiring the handiwork of his new companion, then his smirk was replaced with a frown as he stared at the flowing rivers of blood from the guards, pondering the bad luck he had to reach this point, the choices that were made, not all his, that put him in the circumstances he currently is in. He took one more look at his rescuer, thinking about how this specimen must've gotten unlucky enough to be forced into being such a monster.

Grimly, he said "Come on, let's go back again..." as he started moving for the front entrance, filled with regret.

-End Chapter 21-

**For those of you who could tell what tools were in Pyrrha's tool pouch even with all the name changes, good on you! Also, I wanted to post a url to a tumblr picture of what I imagined Ruby's head band to be like, but the doc manager for this actually cuts out segments of the url, but if you look up RWBY Ruby eye patch, you'll find an image with an older Ruby (with no clothes, but it only shows her head and shoulders) with longer hair and a black head band, thats the one.**


	22. Chapter 22: Escalation

***So I did some research... I didn't know that Beacon was across the water from Vale like it is shown in the first episode, and I feel kinda stupid for not realizing it, so, yeah. It doesn't change too many things, but it's a thing I know now.***

"I spy with my little eye-"

"Come on Pyrrha, you gotta have an opinion either way! Glynda or Oobleck?"

"-something uhm... brow- bla- blue! Blue."

"Sky?"

"Try again"

"The water?"

Pyrrha nodded in humble defeat. She didn't feel too bad though, as her selection of scenery, as beautiful as it was, was limited. Sheer cliffs, water, sky, stone steps, and trees in the distance. The two teenagers were once again making their way up the moonlit steps from the docks to the front lawn of Beacon, but this time, they were doing so with their arms linked, and not a troubled thought ran through their minds. There was no White Fang, no impending threat, Grimm were off aways, and the cold just drove them to huddle together more, something they would never complain about.

After Jaune and Pyrrha's initial kiss, awkwardness ensued, the children finding themselves at a lost as to what to do next, avoiding looking at each other and no words springing to mind. But that was fine for them. Almost telepathically, they agreed that as long as they had each other's company, it couldn't turn sour, and so with their sacks of gifts over their shoulders, they took the scenic route back to Beacon, riding a boat across the long lake, comfortably chatting all the way.

"I think Oobleck would win. I think his speed would overwhelm Glynda" Jaune admitted, entertaining the thought of an all out brawl between the teachers with a grin on his face and a dimple on his left cheek Pyrrha never noticed before.

Nodding her head once again with a chuckle, "I'm not going to say anything. I don't know enough to make a judgment."

"Okay, if you had to gamble on one of them if your life depended on it, would who you bet on?"

Looking away, "I spy with my little eye... something white" Pyrrha responded.

Blowing a quick raspberry, "The stars?" he guessed.

She nodded 'no', pursing her lip tightly together, refusing to talk until he guessed right.

"My sword and sheathe?" he said with doubt.

"Ozpin..." she conceded.

"Huh." He crooked his jaw for a moment, licking his teeth, then said "I forgot about him. Ya know, I never thought about him as a fighter..."

"It might be because he's older" Pyrrha suggested.

"Pffft. You don't know that. He's like- he could be easily thirty years old. I mean, his skin..."

"True, but he could also be at least a century old-"

"-Pffft, no! He's way too spry to be that old!"

"Well he's a huntsmen. It's possible you might not know, but anyone who unlocks their aura extend their expected life span to over 110, and they stay active for much longer than a normal person. And as they get stronger, their vitality remains with them more for longer. My great grand father made it to 123 in fact. He died on his birthday."

Jaune listened in rapt attention, processing this new information. "So he died at 123 exactly? Weird."

"At that point, he just gave up, and let his story fold. My father inherited a generous sum of lien, and with that, he could afford to send me to combat school and Beacon." While speaking of her relative's death, someone she actually cared about, she still kept a calm, pleasant tone, for she had long comprehended and dealt with the absence of her family members.

"Why did he stop?" he asked, surprised by her agreeable attitude and curious as to her past.

"He had lived a long life. He had lived through several great wars, his wife's death, one of his children's deaths, his granddaughter's death, and many conflicts. As much as he suffered, he also lived through many good times, and so he was satisfied with his full life."

"Oh..." Jaune muttered, contemplating the implications of all of this. "Wait, then if humans can live so long by just unlocking their aura, then how come there aren't many old people walking around?" he asked, and regretted doing so as the answer became obvious when it was said out loud.

"Unless you're in a kingdom, bad luck catches up with you eventually. Huntsmen and Huntresses, soldiers, villagers, those in ghettos, criminals, farmers, miners, all are subject to an untimely end. The more likely one is to unlock their aura, the more likely they will put themselves in more danger or are subject to more danger. Example, us."

"Well, pray to be lucky th- Oh!" Jaune crouched down and dug at in-between the irregular stone steps, excavating a card of lien. As he did so, Blake and Sun ran up from behind them and ran around Jaune, giggling out "Sorry" as they trekked up the zigzagging path with speed. Pyrrha curiously watched them as they disappeared over the final steps before the enormous front courtyard that Beacon boasted, drawing her attention back to Jaune as he held up his new found lien to the moonlight.

He wiped the icy mud off with his hoody, excitedly saying "2000 lien! I could buy a nice shirt with this, or a pack of bullets, or a meal for four!"

Pyrrha's face contorted in disbelief. "Wha- wha- wait, how? Who finds a 2000 lien card in the dirt?!" After the initial shock, she burst into laughter for the timing of it all.

"Ha ha! Pray to be lucky is right! Wow..." he pocketed it, extremely pleased with himself.

"I get the feeling we won't have to worry about bad luck catching up with you..." she laughed.

"Well hey, it shouldn't be too surprising that I'm a lucky bastard. After all," he looked down, waiting, building up the tension for his delivery, then looked at her directly and whispered:

"...I did meet you after all."

Inside, Jaune patted himself on the back, proud that this once, he said exactly what he wanted to and exactly what he felt, at the right place and at the right time. What he didn't say though, was that he felt extremely lucky to meet everyone else too, but he didn't need say anymore.

Inside, Pyrrha melted. A crimson blush flushed her face, and she dropped her bag onto the steps. She took the single half step to meet Jaune chest to chest, and wrapped him into a warm hug burying her head onto his shoulder. He reciprocated, lowering his bag and accepting her warmth with a hand on her back and a hand cupping the back of her head, pulling her tight to him. They froze however, hearing a shout just over the last steps, then gunfire. They broke apart.

Leaving their burlap sacks on the steps, they ran up to the top onto the landing pad, weapons drawn but without armor. Sure enough, there in the distance was Beacon in all of its glory, and the well recognized fountain halfway between them and the actual entrance, and sure enough, there was a fight breaking out in front of the fountain. Running closer, the scene became clearer. Blake and Sun were attacking who appeared to be Mercury and Emerald, two third years watching from the fountain lazily, one seeming to be drunk.

Noticing Pyrrha and Jaune, Blake screamed out "THEY"RE WITH ROMAN!" and with that it was back to business.

Pyrrha shield bashed Mercury, and Jaune swung for Emerald, but only the former was successful. Finding their odds stacked against them, Mercury and Emerald split up and ran, Mercury for the forest and Emerald for the docks.

Blake started for Mercury, but Pyrrha ordered against it. "I'll get him, you get her!" Pyrrha shouted, her own self interest in fighting the boy in grey winning her judgment, and gave chase. With a frustrated growl, Blake dashed after Emerald, who instead of taking the stairs leaped from the landing pad. Emerald made it out 20 ft before Blake tackled her mid air, the two of them plummeting from sight. All at once, team CDRL sprinted into the scene, dropping the cases of alcohol they were taking out, the drinks foaming on the concrete amongst the shattered glass, Sun started after Blake and Jaune after Pyrrha, then the shorter of the two onlookers kissed the flamberge style blade of the other student whom then casually walked towards the closest person, Sky Lark, and swiped horizontally at him.

Cardin called out for Jaune, dodging an attack from the hostile bystander. Both Jaune and Sun turned around, examining team CRDL's predicament. Sky's halberd was cut clean in two and the wielder was on his knees recovering from the attack, and the tall blond girl in her blue dress and white cardigan with a black hairband, wielding a five foot long silver wicked blade was parrying attacks from all three sides by the other members of Cardin's team, and who they assumed was her partner just continued resting on the fountain ledge. Making the split second decision, the two boys trusted in their companion's ability to fight, and ran to assist team CRDL.

'Pyrrha defeated Mercury once, she can do it again' thought Jaune as he charged shield first at the tall stranger. Sun reached her first, attempting a stab stun with his staff, only for her to cartwheel around and behind Russell, slashing at him, the result dropping all of their jaws. Russell made an attempt to block by holding up the blade edges up like a boxer would hold up their fist, then Russell's left revolver was bisected, and a perfect red line appeared on his bicep just behind his ruined weapon, blood running like a perfect waterfall from the red line.

The others immediately started back pedaling in terror realizing how little they know about this stranger. They all back pedaled except Jaune. Jaune stood firm where he was, but not out of courage, but uncontrollable fear that negated his self control. Jaune knew how out of his league she was. Russell fell down in pain, clutching his arm, then the girl moved onto the next closest person, Jaune. She strutted towards him with a face that read like someone who was in the middle of a day dream, not even interested with the task at hand, and raised her sword to strike. Out of reaction and with plenty of time to react, as this girl wasn't concealing any movements, Jaune raised his sword to block the downward strike with one thought in his mind, 'Please let me live...'

The evil looking blade with it's white sheen fell upon Jaune's sword, and bounced.

The white sheen that begun to look like white aura disappeared, revealing a standard steel blade underneath, and instead, Crocea Mors was glowing with Jaune's white aura, the 'latin' letters glowing white along the center of the blade instead of yellow like last time. The girl's eyes widened and she jumped back, running to her companion. She held out the flat side of the blade to the girls face, gesturing for something.

The other girl was short like Weiss, but had a small mousy face with matching mouse faunus ears towards the back of her skull with hair that resembled Jaune's except swept back and platinum. She had a long red coat with a white waist sash and a matching frilly white scarf that ran down her front, with loose black paints and tall dark brown boots. At her side is a revolving rapier that almost matched Weiss' Myrtenaster exactly, except with different ornate decorations adorning the metal, and with it a matching ornate flask at her hip which she kept drinking from. Overall she matched pretty well.

"Oh really? You don't need my help, you can handle this easily with you're own two hands. Stand on your own two feet and thou shall never forget how to walk!" the mousy girl exclaimed waving her flask around slopily.

Sun didn't wait, he jumped right at the taller of the two, shotgun nun-chucks blazing in both hands. The shots just seemed to go through her though, splashing in the fountain water behind her. The men left standing did a double take when a second tall blond girl appeared behind Sun, Sun just barely blocking the sly attack. The first blue dressed girl evaporated, leaving only one blond girl again, her faunus friend still sitting down as a spectator.

Sun's speed caught the tall girl by surprise, but he alone was not enough to take her on in any shape or form. Within seconds she was out performing him and setting up for kill strikes, but didn't get the chance with Cardin, Dove, and lastly Jaune interrupting and attacking from all sides. With the four of them attacking simultaneously relentlessly, the girl didn't have any good openings to attack back, but managed to keep all the abuse at bay. Anyone watching would call the sight a five way dance.

Pyrrha was starting to lag behind Mercury, the kick boxer being much quicker on his feet than the Champion. She didn't loose him however by following his trail in the snow, as she couldn't see him for all the black trees. This chase continued for more than ten minutes, with every second Pyrrha loosing her faith in catching Mercury, but, for better or for worse, she found him.

She followed the foot prints to a small clearing where she could hear the whirring sounds of airship engines, and the ground rose before her very eyes. From a deep depression in the ground, a Atlesian Drop ship just like the one's that deployed the Atlesian Knight-200s on the day of the breach began to take off.

"A getaway craft?" she asked herself, connecting the dots that this is a shady character who has been hiding things.

Quickly running around, she found the hole in the snow where Mercury dug for the cockpit, and she ran on top which soon rose above ground level, staring down Mercury who was piloting the aircraft just behind the veil of glass. She used her spear and with all her might and a shot for added power, stabbed in between the crack of the cover and the ship, attempting to pry open the cockpit. Magenta sparks shot from the point of impact like spider silk, but Pyrrha was just not capable of overpowering the metal framework of the aircraft. She clung on however, the spear implanted well into the crevice, and Mercury took off and continued north away from Vale.

The snow rolled from the small aircraft, revealing a large ghillie tarp on the roof which Pyrrha used as a handle to steady herself. Yanking Milo from the metal, she took a kneeling position and started firing into the windshield to no avail. The military grade plexiglass just repelled her bullets like beads, but it wasn't without consequence. Mercury rolled the aircraft to shake off Pyrrha, but she found a handle and didn't let go. The icy handle burned her hand, as did the air rushing past her and into her clothing as she dangled off the side of the craft, her teeth chattering viciously and her sight going blurry. It was simple, she couldn't continue this, she needed to bring down the ship.

Reaching out with one hand towards the left engine, the closer of the two, she focused on ceasing all movements just like she had done before to Penny. The loud buzz of all the moving parts inside the engine slowed down, the buzz turning into a hum, and the left side began to drop in relation to the right. Mercury tried to compensate, but the left was no longer responding. The drop ship was no longer in his control, and thus spun along it's z axis wildly towards the ground at a 45º angle, both passengers suffering their own panic attacks.

He punched the controls before propping himself inside with his hands and feet, eyes closed, "Nononononono fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfukfukfukfuk!" bracing for the inevitable impact.

Moments before crashing, Pyrrha let go, flying head first to the ground. Her left shoulder caught painfully on a tree, putting her in a counter clockwise spin and finally landing in the snow. Standing up, she groped her shoulder in momentary agony, but soon it faded, no doubt taking a chunk from her aura pools. Looking at the wreck, the cockpit was buried in the ground in front of a thick tree and the whole craft was upside down, the rear end sticking up in the air.

"I won" Pyrrha grinned to herself, proud of her handiwork.

She narrowly dodged the passenger cabin door that shot out at her, but didn't dodge the heavy lead round that Mercury fired the moment he saw her. The Atlesian Battle rifle round pegged her in the breast, knocking the wind out of her and knocking her back thanks to her lack of armor. Rolling to the side, she hid behind a tree and took several shots with her rifle to deter him. He jumped from the passenger cabin and limped behind an engine, returning fire. His gun was bigger and it was as simple as that, she could maybe hit him a couple times, but not enough to stop him, while his shots were blowing chunks of the tree she hid behind away. She rolled behind another tree, landing a round on his weak leg, but was quickly showered with wood shrapnel.

Mercury's battle rifle ran dry however, as his skill in aiming required that he expend more bullets to accomplish what a regular marksmen could. He turned tail and began to limp run away, but Pyrrha was determined to bring him in, or even possibly kill him. Checking her clip, there was two bullets left, and so she went for spear form and pitched Milo with assistance from a bullet, aimed at the kick boxer's back. He saw it coming however and turned, catching Milo in the side of the battle rifle, effectively ruining his empty gun, but sparing him further harm. He tossed the stuck weapons behind him and made a beeline for Pyrrha, but she rolled past him, making her own beeline for Milo. Just before she could reach it though, Mercury swiped her legs out from underneath her and tripping her. He went for a downward kill strike with his heel, but Pyrrha rolled to her side, grabbing Milo and swinging the make shift hammer. He dodged, allowing her the time to get up and flail the cumbersome mess at the man in grey, but the attacks were too slow. Ducking down to dodge, he made a low kick, but Pyrrha jumped over, and with her foe open, she brought down the hammer. He redirected it into the ground with his arm plating, the hammer lodged into the ground. Pyrrha looked at him for a moment then punched with her shield only for him to utilize his armor to block again. He kicked Milo in an attempt to disarm her, but instead it dislodged the spear from the battle rifle, freeing up Pyrrha to fight for real.

Stumbling back for just a moment, she lunged forward, sword in hand, and unleashed a flurry of attacks on Mercury. The snow impeded their footwork as if their feet were glued altered their tactics, forcing Mercury especially to drop his acrobatic style and use his armor as his first line of defense, kicks being for openings only, not making them.

Tiring out rather quickly on both sides, the duel was interrupted by a 10ft tall stag Grimm, a Patronus, who charged antlers first and pinned Mercury against the airship. Pyrrha's first instinct was to free Mercury and kill the stag Grimm, but then she took advantage of the moment and stepped back, watching him struggle with the beast. It kept pulling back to go forward in an attempt to gore the man in grey, but he tracked it, holding it's antlers and lifting himself off the ground to keep relatively safe, although his back kept being slammed into the metal exterior. Tiring of his not dying, the Grimm pulled back to shake him off, Mercury now free to move kicked it in the flank, stunning it for just long enough for him to twist it's neck. He didn't break it's neck, but it's body followed it's head, and the head was sideways, and it fell onto it's side. Wrestling for a good angle, Mercury continue twisting it's antlers before finally curb stomping the back of the neck. With the loud crack, the body stopped resisting, and the head flopped backwards towards Mercury who was already on his way to attacking Pyrrha.

Catching his second wind, Mercury had the energy to use his acrobatic fighting style finally, quickly overwhelming Pyrrha at first before she got the drift of his pattern like when she fought him the second time.

"Third time's the charm!" She shouted, making her counter attack.

Cardin had long been knocked out, and Jaune was crawling to the fountain, fiddling with his scroll. Sun and Dove were on their last legs fighting the psycho tall blond girl who seemed to be at least a little tired. Dove would go for a stab, and on the other side of the girl, Sun would be nun-chucking it up, but the swords-woman would parry the former then not be there for the latter, but instead five feet away. They had determined that her semblance was to distort light, as she kept them guessing as to what was real and what wasn't, at times having four shadows of herself in the mix.

After the thousandth parry, the girl kicked in the back of Dove's legs and slammed down on his head, forcing him to kneel indefinitely, his sight temporarily gone on top of the incredible pain, but still conscious. Sun was now the last man standing, panting profusely compared to her slight sweat building on her brow. If he wanted to shoot her, she wouldn't be there, and if he wanted to whack her, she would parry and move into a riposte, him only barely breaking out of it. The result was a foregone conclusion only ending in his defeat. A quick look around would point to such a prediction what with all of team cardinal on the ground, even Dove, and Jaune propping himself against the fountain in defeat.

'Jaune?' thought Sun. 'Why is he sitting by that mouse chick?' This moment of distraction was Sun's undoing.

With an uppercut slash, Sun was launched into the air limply, landing unceremoniously on his side unconscious. She walked over his body, positioning herself at his head, and propped her sword for a execution.

"I've fought third years that didn't last that long. Interesting..." she muttered to herself, raising her wicked blade.

"Wait! Kill me first!" Jaune whimpered out loudly.

The faunus girl started laughing uncontrollably, "What!? Why!? You are one dumb kid, aren't you? She's going to kill all of you anyways..."

"Please! I don't want to watch it happen..." he said, tears starting from his eyes and his voice breaking.

The tall girl strutted over to him and stared for a moment, whispering "Curiouser and curiouser..." as she raised her blade once more.

"Just before you do it, can I say one thing?" Jaune cried.

The faunus girl continued laughing, "Pffft! Go ahead, after all-"

"Go to hell" he said with a smile and confident voice.

The skies echoed with the sound of thunder, and a bullet tore through the faunus girl's right mouse ear, over Jaune's head, his hair being sucked into the vacuum left behind the bullet, and finally through the tall girl's left arm. She went flying 30ft away, spinning violently as her left hand flew in a totally different direction, and her arm simply turned to red mist. A just barely awake Ruby, who was on the steps of the meeting hall but now in the meeting hall, loaded another A-MAG into the chamber.

The faunus girl was crawling on the ground in shock, making her way to her companion. Her companion... sat up and looked at the stump that was her arm, and just... stared.

"Ms. Mally..." the girl whispered, "I am in need of assistance..."

The girl named Mally stood up and broke into a sprint, lifting the taller girl and running off without a word, going down the stairs. Ruby started to make chase, but stopped to check out the condition of her fellow students. At least she started to, until she saw the left hand and stopped in her tracks, staring at it with her mouth agape. Jaune sadly watched this as he propped himself better against the fountain, dropping his scroll that he used to call Ruby to his side. Cardin started to bridal carry the whimpering Russell, but he himself was shaky, and Dove stood up once his vision came back to him. He walked over to Sky whom was still curled up in a ball, and helped him up. Dove felt a pang of anger inside as he helped prop up Sky, Sky who instantly let him self be disarmed and just sat on the side line the entire time like a child, Sky who wasn't even hurt, and just silently rested on Dove's shoulder, Sky who...

"What?" Dove said, pulling his hand from Sky's waist, his hand red like roses. They couldn't see it because of Sky's black shirt, but now he could. "You're bleeding!" Dove exclaimed, opening the gap in the shirt to examine the cut. It was a perfect cut, and a wide one.

"Sky!" Dove cried. Sky coughed once, blood coming from his mouth. "Sky! NO!" The blue haired boy leaned back, unable to stand, and his cut parted ways enough to reveal the depth. Dove let him down, tears pouring out like a faucet.

"SKY! SKYYYYYYY! NO! DON'T DO THIS TO ME! NO! NO NO NO!" The cut was a foot wide and at least three inches deep, his insides utterly ruined. Sky was already dead. Dove cry out, blathering incoherently, raising and lowering his head to Sky's chest. Sky just laid there, eyes open, mouth open, dead. His foot still twitched as the muscles in his body were unwinding, but it didn't fool anyone.

Cardin and Russell gawked motionlessly at the picture, Ruby stared at the hand motionlessly, and Jaune wiped the blood from his mouth, thoughtlessly watching Ruby. Sun remained unconscious, 'lucky' thought Jaune.

Pyrrha struck Mercury's arm, he blocked and clenched the blade with his arm, effectively catching Pyrrha. He kicked three times, each time hitting her shield, but the last kick knocking it from her hands, and kicked once more, breaking one of Pyrrha's left ribs. She sprung her empty left hand to meet his face, breaking his nose.

The two warriors had reached a stage of combat that few would experience and live to tell about it. Two highly competent fighters that were evenly matched, fighting to the death and easily in the red aura wise. There was no fainting in this fight, no giving up, no holding back, the only thing one can do is regress into a savage monster.

Mercury stumbled back, Pyrrha picked up her shield, and they went back at it. Mercury expended his last rounds on her shield, morphing it beyond practical use, and so she threw it at him. He blocked and was met with a spear lunge right behind it. Jumping back, the spear pierced his zipper and barely into his sternum, leaving him mostly fine save some pain. He grabbed Milo just behind the blade and yanked it out of Pyrrha's outstretched hand, then tossed it behind him. Pyrrha attempted a roll past him once more, but he knew her game, and kicked her mid-roll. She sprung into a crawl, reaching for Milo like a mad man, and Mercury came up from behind, grabbing her head. She jumped with her knees and head butted him in the crotch, then made another attempt for her weapon.

Mercury stumbled for just a moment, but a pain like that was nothing compared to real agony as he experienced, and went right back to it. Pyrrha stood up with her spear in hand, finding that against Mercury, her sword form was just not enough to beat him, and the spear was her only hope, especially with no shield. She crouched low, circling Mercury like a primal hunter, her spear keeping him at a distance, ready to strike like a viper. The kick boxer braced himself, and sure enough, she struck. He kicked it out of her hand, fooling her for the third time, and went for a kick. She caught it, albeit painfully, and punched him twice hard in the jaw, opening a gash along his face. Then with her own kick, she knee him in the gut, then grabbed his head in an attempt to knee his head. He grabbed her arms and wrestled with her, not surprised by her equal strength. They found themselves reaching and fighting for every advantage, Pyrrha almost biting his fingers off, Mercury almost snapping her jaw, Pyrrha almost clawing out his eyes, Mercury almost finishing her off with a head butt, and so on. But then a second head butt loosened Pyrrha's grip on Mercury, and with effort, he had her in a hold from behind, bringing her face down to the ground into the snow. He pulled her right arm behind her back, and she kicked and grunted rage-fully, blood in her teeth, but as he pulled, her other hand dug into the frozen earth, her nails scraping all the dirt and snow she could get, and threw it into his face.

Unfazed, he pulled the final stretch, popping her arm out of her socket, and Pyrrha screamed. Not stopping there, he out stretched the arm and punched it just right, breaking her fore arm. Another scream. He lifted her head, wrapping his dominant arm around her chin.

"Third time's the charm, right!?" he vented out, struggling against her.

She reached with her left arm, yanking at his hair and anything she could get to make him stop twisting and to prevent him from getting under her chin and around her neck. He stopped for a moment and slammed her face first into the dirt and rocks visible from where her head previously struggled and cleared away the snow. Pulling her back up, he reached around her neck, and started jerking. With a pop, Pyrrha fell forward.

Mercury let go, jumping to dodge the Ursa Major that was charging him. A whole pack behind it as well. Seeing as how his job was done, he ran, the ursa following after him, several even trampling Pyrrha.

And she was alone.

Pyrrha sat up. She had never been so grateful for Grimm before. If it wasn't for them, he would've twisted all the way, and instead of performing chiropractic adjustments on her, her neck would have broken. But still... she hurt all over, tremendously. Especially her arm and neck.

She crawled to the rear of the drop ship, and with a one armed pull up she lifted herself up the seven feet in to the passenger cabin, and just in time too, as she spotted ursa returning the area in bulk. She rolled downhill to the front of the ship, every broken bone and sore joint and bruise and gash on her body screaming at her for obvious reasons. She blacked out for a minute before coming back to consciousness, and opened an emergency panel in the cabin that contained a first aid kit, food, another battle rifle, and a emergency transponder. She reached for the emergency transponder, hit the big red button on it, then passed out.

Pyrrha stayed as such throughout the rest of the St. David's Day night, half her body broken and bruised, her shield wrecked and hidden somewhere in the snow, her sword missing, her cloak soaked in blood, below 0º fahrenheit, Grimm everywhere, sleeping on the ceiling of a downed ship, the light fixture digging into her back as she laid crammed into what essentially was a gutter, and Mercury got away.

Little did she know, she wasn't the only one suffering so.

-End Chapter 22-

***Sorry I didn't upload for awhile, so in return I give you this***


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